Maps Designed to Persuade and Mislead · PDF fileMaps Designed to Persuade and Mislead ... San...

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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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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

k.foote@colorado.edu

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