Maps Designed to Persuade and Mislead - By seducing viewers into believing that the data are reliable, relevant, and essentially complete, a ...
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Maps Designed to Persuade
and Mislead
By seducing viewers into believing that the
data are reliable, relevant, and essentially
complete, a geographic information system
can become a dangerous instrument of
self-deception.
Mark Monmonier, HTLWM, p. 180
1
Every mapmaker is an individual (with a particular
background, skill sets, research agenda, political agenda,
funding agenda, access to certain data, etc.) who makes a
particular map (hard copy, web-based, share-able, etc.) for a
particular reason (a job assignment, a class, a publication,
etc.) at a particular time (during a workshop, while under
attack, before a deadline, etc.).
Maps CAN’T show everything. Mapmakers must simplify,
generalize, and select which objects to represent or display
and how to represent or display those objects.
“Errors” can be deliberate or unintentional, or a
combination of both.
How well do you understand the data,
as a responsible map maker and a
critical map reader?
Data sources: how collected, where, by whom, when, etc.; Know the lineage
and history of your data. Be sure to KEEP METADATA and to READ
METADATA!
Data geography: at what scale has it been aggregated, are
you attempting to compare data that was collected at different
scales?
ALWAYS consider multiple ways to evaluate numeric data. Look at the
pattern, generate histograms, make scatter plots, conduct appropriate
statistics.
2
“Truth” in advertising…Vermont Teddy Bear
3
4
MSNBC.com
ARCTIC NATIONS OK
CLIMATE STRATEGY
Measures encouraged,
but not required, to
curb warming
Choice of projections…
5
Deliberate choice of design over geographical accuracy…
6
Making political points…
7
Making surfaces from points…
200 weather stations
vs.
9000 weather stations
8
Histogram Histogram
200 200
150 150
100 100
50 50
0 0
0
8
16
24
32
40
48
56
64
72
80
88
96
0
8
16
24
32
40
48
56
64
72
80
88
96
Bin Bin
Natural breaks Equal interval
Playing with the numbers…
Histogram Histogram
Mean
200 200
150 150
100 100
50 50
0 0
0
8
16
24
32
40
48
56
64
72
80
88
96
0
8
16
24
32
40
48
56
64
72
80
88
96
Bin Bin
Quantile Standard Deviation
“Equal Interval”
“Quantile”
9
Playing with the numbers… Total Number data
Normalized data
Am I telling the whole truth about elderly population in the U.S.?
10Am I telling the whole truth about elderly population in the U.S.?
Category method: Natural breaks
Category method: Quantile
11MAUP or Modifiable Areal Unit Problem
Data collection unit: County
Data collection unit: Block Group
1213
http://www.popvssoda.com/
http://www.popvssoda.com/countystats/total-county.html
14The Silence of Maps
“The notion of ‘silences’ on maps is central to any
argument about the influence of their hidden political
messages. It is asserted here that maps—just as
much as examples of literature or the spoken
word—exert a social influence through
their omissions as much as by the
features they depict
and emphasise.”
J.B. Harley. 1988. Maps, knowledge and power. In Cosgrove, D. and Daniels, S., eds,
The iconography of landscape. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 290
Mark Monmonier, How to
Lie with Maps (1986)
15William Love’s Original Plan, 1893
Topozone.com (2006)
16maps.google.com (2006)
Earth.google.com (2006)
17Undercutting by coal mines.
18Shadowed Ground
America’s Landscape of
Violence and Tragedy
Kenneth E. Foote
k.foote@colorado.edu
Roadside Memorial, Austin, TX
Bunker Hill, MA
Branch Davidian Compound,
Waco, TX Cherry, IL, Mine
Disaster
Antietam Battlefield, MD
Wounded Knee, SD
19Rectification
Sanctification
Obliteration
Designation
Sanctification A "sacred" place, set apart from its surroundings
and dedicated to the memory of an event, person
or group, usually involving the construction of a
Moral and Ethical durable marker and serving as the focus for
continuing commermorative rituals
Lessons
Heroes and Martyrs
A Sense of Tends to occur rarely, but the prominence of
sites of such sites tends to give the
Community Loss
impression that sanctification is common
20Designation A step on the path toward santification, a means
of rallying support, a focus for protest
Lorraine Motel,
Rectification
Memphis By far the most common response to
violence and tragedy
Manzanar, CA
Obliteration Active effacement of evidence of particularly
shocking or shameful events
John Wayne Gacy
Home, Suburban
Chicago
St.Valentine’s
Day Massacre,
Chicago
Beverly Hills
Supper Club,
Southgate, Ky
21Change through time The creation or “invention” of
commemorative traditions and narratives
taking decades or generations to unfold
The gradual creation of a cosmographical representation of
the national past on landscape in names and places
Inscribing traditions at the
state and local levels
San Jacinto
Battlefield
Cemetery, TX
22The interplay between places and
placenames in memory and
commemoration
Cocoanut Grove Fire, Boston
28 November 1942
492 people die.
Boston Globe Copyright
New Scholarship in Cultural and
Historical Geography
23New Scholarship in
Cultural and Historical
Geography
David Lowenthal, in reflecting upon the meanings people ascribe to place
and landscape, has observed that "features recalled with pride are apt to be
safeguarded against erosion and vandalism; those that reflect shame may
be ignored or expunged from the landscape."
1-3 July 1863
24Sand Creek Massacre Site
Kiowa County, Colorado
November 29, 1864
As John Bodnar notes in his book on commemoration
and patriotism in America in the twentieth century,
"The shaping of a past worthy of public
commemoration in the present is contested and
involves a struggle for supremacy between advocates
of various political ideas and sentiments."
25MLK, Jr. NHS
Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas.
26Upper Heyford Airfield, Oxfordshire, UK
What about secrecy and security?
27Pantex Weapons Plant near Amarillo, Texas
28Monmonier, p. 116
2930
William Bunge, Nuclear War Atlas, p. 19.
31William Bunge, Nuclear War Atlas, p. 53.
William Bunge, Nuclear War Atlas, p. 135.
32Carol Gersmehl, Hunter College
Kris Jones, Colorado College
Nancy Millichap, National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education
Additional material: Ken Foote, University of Colorado at Boulder
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