Implementation of GIS-Based Applications in Water Governance

__Abstract__ Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are computer programs that are able to bring large amounts of data of both the physical and the social system together in one comprehensive overview shown digitally. GIS occurred very rapidly on the Dutch policy agenda. In this paper we analyze how the fast introduction process of GIS-based instruments in water management and more specifically in river flood management can be explained. By applying a range of classical models on agenda-setting, we show the important contribution of GIS to the water and flood issue in current spatial planning and policy development in the Netherland

Transitioning Toward an Internet Culture: An Interorganizational Analysis of Identity Construction from Online Services to Intranets

A great deal of attention has been given to the Internet’s capacity to enable new and multiple presentations of the self – even to become a site for new identity construction. While we do not deny the potential of Internet technologies to transform contemporary social practices and the way we see the world and ourselves, a closer look at the transition from “older ” media and technologies to the Internet gives us a better understanding of how electronic discourses are being shaped. In this paper, we examine a few sites of identity, paying particular attention to the practices and technologies that shape presentations and interpellations of individuals, as well as the construction, deconstruction and reassemblage of collective identities. Using data from two empirical studies, we examine what has shaped the presentations and interpretations of online identities over the past decade. Interestingly, we see that creative uses of “older ” media, like online profiling, have set the stage for common uses of the Internet; and that constrained uses of Internet technologies, like intranets and extranets, allow corporations and governments to extend control over selfpresentations and to more effectively interpellate identities