探索自發性地理資訊方法對公共事務治理之應用

Exploring the Method of Volunteered Geographic Information Applied in Public Affairs and Governance

在公共事務愈趨複雜的發展下，公共行政學者開始思考如何在政策網絡、協力治理及其範疇中，連結社區培力及公民參與等課題。的確，近年已有學者陸續將空間脈絡資料分析的概念納入協力治理研究中來討論組織及個人的網絡互動，並將「地理資訊系統」與「公眾參與式地理資訊系統」技術應用於政策場域及社區事務的討論中。本文所探討的「自發性地理資訊」則是進一步試圖打破以公部門及專家學者為首的資訊蒐集之權力群體框架，轉變公民過去被動的角色成為積極主動的社群行動者，並扮演公共政策的資訊提供者以刺激群眾參與之治理策略。因此，本文透過實際個案與文獻分析後發現，自發性地理資訊對於公共事務的治理效益具有高度共享及合產效益的優勢，可藉由長期在基層累積的空間資訊建置由下而上的資料庫。同時，在進行動態資料的內容分析過程更能深切地瞭解民眾真實感受的呈現及提升參與公共事務的能力。此外，自發性地理資訊在實務操作上的限制在於民眾所提供的資訊之可信度問題，且須因應參與者長期觀察而中途退出的困境。整體而言，自發性地理資訊對於公共政策處理空間資料的實務效益與優勢，仍可提供跨部門組織一個實踐公民參與及地方治理的參考與應用。

Attempting to resolve the challenge of the governance complexity in public affairs, the method restriction in quantitative and qualitative approaches has been reflected in many research fields to explore innovative tools for data analysis. Following the concept of new public management, scholars have rethought the strategy to collaborate with street-level organizations for achieving the purpose of citizen participation. Besides discussing the development of organizational and individual dimensions in collaborative governance on public affairs, the researchers analyze urban policies through spatial data description. Recently, the scholars of public administration have attempted to subsume the applications of geographic information system (GIS) and public participatory geographic information system (PPGIS) in the policy domain for community interactions of public participation. In this article, the concept of volunteered geographic information (VGI) has been addressed from the role of passive citizen to a more positive actor in bridging crucial information and engaging in public affairs. This research analyzed and compared the strength and weakness of VGI by case study and archival analysis on public governance which concludes VGI’s advantages of high sharing and co-production effects that the multiple actors jointly built a long-term and bottom-up database to empower citizens’ capacity in participating in public affairs. On the other side, the restrictions indicate that the information reliability conducted from participants needs to be verified and the participatory samples are possibly lost during a consistent action process. Eventually, the method of VGI can provide a practical technique for analyzing public policies related to spatial issue through citizen participation.