Host: The Association of Japanese Geographers
A rapid progress of ICT (information communication technology) in the 1990s leads our geographic information transmission to a computerized, interactive and ubiquitous one. Paper maps are giving leading role to the electronic maps which can be viewed on mobile phones. The key difference of the two media is whether the it has the interactivity. In cooperation of mobile based communication tools such as Facebook and LINE and electronic maps, people can create their own thematic maps simply by pasting texts, tags and photos and uploads it on to an unspecified number of audiences. In addition, in the area of participatory GIS such as OpenStreetmap, the infrastructure development of the platform for interactive GIS expands the general public participation into the mapping process which had priorly been done by government agencies and professionals.
However, in contrast to these remarkable technological innovations, the discussion of the ethic aspects (responsibility and literacy in the use of such technologies) are delayed. With based on the lessons from the Hanshin Earthquake, japanese geopgraphers committed to the process of the effectuation of NSDI Act of Japan in 2007 which holds out the ideal of e-land. The act plays a major role in the ubiquitous mapping society today. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that the realization of ubiquitous mapping society also requires the geographers to work through the challenges and risks in utilizing the technologies.
In this presentation, the author (1) reviews the literature to summarize the geographers' contribution on the topic into privacy and surveillance, (2) provides two case studies which cannot be explained by the past geographers' framework, and (3) advocates the alternative explanation with employing the viewpoint from information ethics and determines the importance of geographic education for improving the literacy and sense of ethics in the digital era.
