Maps and Civilization by Norman J. W. Thrower;

Author:Norman J. W. Thrower;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780226799759
Publisher: University of Chicago Press

It is a short step from journalistic to persuasive cartography, in which maps are designed to “persuade” or change the opinion of the viewer. This term was coined by Judith Tyner to include, among others, maps used by theologians to illustrate current beliefs, by advertisers to sell products, and by propagandists to mislead the enemy.25 Tyner recognizes deliberate, unintentional, and reader-caused persuasive cartography and cites Nazi propaganda maps of World War II, improper use of the Mercator projection for world distributions, and Sir Halford J. Mackinder’s map of the “heartland” as examples. Mackinder, by marginalizing the Americas on his political world map on an ovoid projection, may have misled himself. In persuasive cartography, the map itself becomes a psychological tool. A whole arsenal of devices may be used for such mapping: color; projection; maps in series; size relationships; symbols, especially arrows; and boundaries. These are employed to influence opinion rather than to dispassionately inform the map reader. The authority of the map and globe, which is emblematic of and synonymous with education, is invoked, even though some persuasive maps contain intolerable errors. For example, the author once saw an advertising map of the Americas in which the equator passed through Panama rather than Brazil and Ecuador, probably because it seemed a “natural” place for 0 degrees latitude. Then there is the “four-polar” projection used by a Los Angeles supermarket chain to help encourage recycling (fig. 9.8)! We should be properly critical of all media output—including printed maps.

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