A tetradic analysis of GIS and society using McLuhan's law of the media

Bibliographic Data

ID8423968
AuthorsDaniel Z Sui (0009-0006-1129-021X, Texas A&M University, corresponding author), Michael F Goodchild (0000-0003-1075-3471, University of California, Santa Barbara, corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume47
Issue1
Pages5-17
Publication date2003-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCanadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-3658 • E-ISSN: 1541-0064
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1541-0064.02e08
OpenAlexW2095821344
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited50

The social implications of GIS have been debated over the past five years among scholars in several disciplines. GIS have been either conceived by practitioners as value‐free, neutral tools for problem‐solving or castigated by critical social theorists as socially biased technologies serving only corporate and state interests. Neither of these polarized views is very helpful in understanding the complex relationship between GIS and society. This paper argues that GIS are increasingly becoming media for communicating various crucial social and environmental information to the general public. By reconceptualizing GIS as media, the paper conducts a detailed tetradic analysis on the social implications of GIS using Marshall McLuhan's law of media. The analysis reveals the paradoxical and ambivalent nature of GIS technology. To make GIS fulfill democratic ideals in society, this paper calls for a shift of perspective, from viewing them as instruments for problem‐solving to viewing them as media for communication. This shift from instrumental to communicative rationality enables us to examine more critically and holistically how space, people and environment have been represented, manipulated and visualized in GIS and thus promotes a more critical and democratic GIS practice

Ambivalence · Democracy · Epistemology · Geographic information system · Geography · Political science · Politics · Rationality · Remote sensing · Social media · Social science · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Computer Science · Data Management and Algorithms · Geographic Information Systems Studies · Law · Psychology · Semantic Web and Ontologies · Social Psychology

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