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Maps Designed to Persuadeand 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
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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.
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.).
“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.
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“Truth” in advertising…Vermont Teddy Bear
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MSNBC.com
ARCTIC NATIONS OK CLIMATE STRATEGY
Measures encouraged, but not required, to curb warming
Choice of projections…
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Deliberate choice of design over geographical accuracy…
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Making political points…
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200 weather stations
vs.
9000 weather stations
Making surfaces from points…
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Histogram
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Bin
Natural breaks Equal interval
Quantile Standard Deviation
Mean
Playing with the numbers…
“Quantile”
“Equal Interval”
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Total Number data
Normalized data
Playing with the numbers…
Am I telling the whole truth about elderly population in the U.S.?
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Am I telling the whole truth about elderly population in the U.S.?
Category method: Natural breaks
Category method: Quantile
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MAUP or Modifiable Areal Unit Problem
Data collection unit: County
Data collection unit: Block Group
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http://www.popvssoda.com/
http://www.popvssoda.com/countystats/total-county.html
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The 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 throughtheir omissions as much as by the
features they depictand 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)
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William Love’s Original Plan, 1893
Topozone.com (2006)
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maps.google.com (2006)
Earth.google.com (2006)
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Undercutting by coal mines.
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Shadowed GroundAmerica’s Landscape of
Violence and Tragedy
Kenneth E. Foote
Branch Davidian Compound, Waco, TX
Wounded Knee, SD
Roadside Memorial, Austin, TX
Antietam Battlefield, MD
Bunker Hill, MA
Cherry, IL, Mine Disaster
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RectificationSanctification
DesignationObliteration
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 durable marker and serving as the focus for
continuing commermorative rituals
Sanctification
Tends to occur rarely, but the prominence of sites of such sites tends to give the
impression that sanctification is common
Heroes and Martyrs
A Sense of
Community Loss
Moral and Ethical
Lessons
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A step on the path toward santification, a means of rallying support, a focus for protest
Designation
By far the most common response to
violence and tragedy
Rectification
Manzanar, CA
Lorraine Motel,
Memphis
Active effacement of evidence of particularly shocking or shameful events
Obliteration
Beverly Hills Supper Club,
Southgate, Ky
John Wayne Gacy Home, Suburban
Chicago
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,
Chicago
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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
Change through time
Inscribing traditions at the state and local levels
San Jacinto Battlefield
Cemetery, TX
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The interplay between places and placenames in memory and
commemoration
Cocoanut Grove Fire, Boston28 November 1942
492 people die.Boston Globe Copyright
New Scholarship in Cultural and Historical Geography
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New 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
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Sand Creek Massacre SiteKiowa 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."
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MLK, Jr. NHS
Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas.
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Upper Heyford Airfield, Oxfordshire, UK
What about secrecy and security?
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Pantex Weapons Plant near Amarillo, Texas
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Monmonier, p. 116
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William Bunge, Nuclear War Atlas, p. 19.
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William Bunge, Nuclear War Atlas, p. 53.
William Bunge, Nuclear War Atlas, p. 135.
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Carol 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