Wanna get from the Minneapolis to the Big Apple? There’s a map for that. How about finding your way to class on the first day on campus at your new university? There’s probably a map for that. If you’ve had a question that dabbled in space or time or just wanted to see a cool version of your country, there may be a map for that too.
Maps keep their information neatly packaged in symbols, colors and rely on the viewer to unpack the meaning. Now it seems like anyone can make a map and most anyone can but it takes technique to make a compelling one. There are horrid maps churned out by media outlets effectively skewing the truth. We love the chic ones, on full-color glossy National Geographic pages and still turn back to the amateur monochromatic ones on the pages of our old pal Wikipedia. But what makes those really good maps so good? The answer is "lies."
Maps tell lies? Of course they do.
We won't go as far as the BuzzFeed Motion picture staff when they posted Maps that Prove That You Don't Really Know Earth, but keep in mind that all maps do abstract reality.
Dr. Robert Roth mentions that concept on the first day of every Introduction to Cartography course he teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The cartographic problematic, as he calls it, is that in the process of externalizing geographic knowledge into a single representation, abstractions are made and ultimately, information is lost. He proposes that the only way to get over that is to have more interactive maps. Those maps rely on the user to uncover the missing information and use the abstraction to its fullest extent to obtain valuable information.
Maps tend to work because we tend to work. Roth says like language, maps are social constructs. Our ability to see is effectively innate. “Good maps take advantage of the eye-brain process.”
What better way to communicate by using concepts that we already understand. Red tends to mean danger, bad or at risk while green tends to mean safe, good or healthy. Most of the faculty we use to interpret maps are reinforced in our everyday experience. Cartographers, map-makers put these associations to work.
Maps are still authored; "Google maps didn't just appear," says Roth. People and their biases are integral in making maps effective. In the great age of data, cartographers are more important than ever. If people trained solely in geographic information systems (GIS) were our map makers, we might have maps too complex, too data heavy for efficient use. The people that made the incredible interactive Google Maps have an agenda. Dr. Roth cleverly points out "it's not objective, it's a purposefully designed map that helps you spend your money." While you are planning your commute, it is quite easy to spot restaurants, and boutiques. You've gotta admit, that's one clever disguise.
Luckily every author doesn't tell a story to get you to buy the latest gadget or chic sweater. Some try to pass on information that you or the author thinks is valuable. Take the presidential election for example. In the end, all that people care about is the party in power. Think of the ways that the public symbolizes the opposing parties.
...
The donkey and elephant are popular choices. I bet you haven't seen a map with pictures of the mascots covering the state that the party got. Too many lines would create illusions of new geographies when iterated for each of the fifty states in the USA so we default to red and blue. But why are those red and blue maps so obnoxious? Turn out that our eyes see different colors with differently. Cones in our eyes are packed tightly for reds giving great resolution while cones that detect blues are spread out. It's like looking left and right at the same time. There's some strain going on. Good cartographers will consider their audience and not use such harsh color combinations or will use different versions of the classic colors especially when their work would be shown on something that functions by emitting light.
 |
| Painful experience |
 |
| Pleasant experience |
Scientists also have a part in the cartography business. Soil scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Alfred Hartemink Ph.D. wraps his job succinctly saying "different people want to know different things and what we need to do is make sure we provide that information. Sounds simple but it’s a bit complex."
There are two kinds of spatial data, discrete and continuous. Discrete phenomena occur at specific points in space while continuous phenomena occur throughout the plane of space. Cows are discrete. Soils are continuous. In industries that revolve around precision and placing things in discrete locations, Hartemink says that there's another dimension that needs to be made available and thus is boldly stamped on his works. Every statement these maps make has a guarantee; "all the mapping we attach a level of accuracy, or if you like, uncertainty."
So the lies are back! But this time, it's more like risk. Researchers and practitioners alike rely on data big-time to make decisions. We simultaneously know that's it's impossible to know some properties for certain. Scientists that map, note their degree of accuracy on their works so others know how much trust to put in the findings. We have a have a good deal of data, but we know somewhat less about how that data is spread out across space. "The probability [that we're correct] is largely dependent on how many samples you have or how much field work you did," says Hartemink. Knowing that, half of his time is spent in the field collecting data and ground-truthing or validating his claims. "We don't just do mapping, we do soil science."
Dr. Hartemink advises those thinking of going into cartography to "work on the uncertainty, on the accuracy because most people doing mapping aren't addressing it."
Scientists know that there's a degree of accuracy in everything they do and the public doesn't take well to terms of uncertainty. People take it as a license not to trust science when the word uncertainty is uttered. The information broker is simply saying is that there may be more to the story than what you see in this representation or the other variables weren’t necessary to get the point across. Dr. Roth addresses the cartographic problematic in all of his works but for those static maps one may still ask things like...
"Why does it only show three cities?" and the reply could be "Well, that’s all that’s relevant to the statement." After all, he’s pretty sure you don’t want to see the other hundred he’s excluded so you could get the message.
No comments:
Post a Comment