Amnesty International: Eyes on Syria

This is NOT a part of anything for my grade... I just thought it was a super epic example of neogeography: Eyes on Syria

            The map I created is a prime example of how the concept of “neogeography” may be used as an excellent educational tool, but also abused as a tool of the creator’s intentions, whatever they may be. In my map, I chose to mark locations affected by what has been called the “Arab Spring” of last year. While the elements of the map regarding the locations themselves were entirely factual according to my research, the presentation of them was completely subjective. Each piece of media utilized is highly sympathetic towards the revolutionaries of a given region; some even go so far as to villainize the suppressive regimes. If you’ll note my previous sentence, even my chosen rhetoric reflects my personal opinions as I label whatever powers may have been in place “suppressive”. In the environment of neogeography, mapmakers are not acting simply to record physical elements. We are presented with social, political, cultural, and other biases in the commentary and artistic elements that they incorporate. This gives them a phenomenal opportunity to make a more personal connection with the “audience” of the map, and therefore to produce a more lasting impact.

            Unfortunately, this means that as we deal with controversial topics in terms of neogeography, whoever stands on the opposite end of an issue is equally capable of exploiting this technology. With regard to my own map, I am not a person who actually experienced any of these conflicts first hand. From the beginning, whatever angle I take on the presentation of my map will already be highly influenced from outside sources as I’ll be getting all my information second, third, or fourth hand. Following whatever research I did, my selection of media and style of writing quite clearly indicates that I sympathize with the rebels. If the viewers of the map knew my background, they would know that I am a young, American citizen who has been deeply involved with Amnesty International for over a year now, and no one would really be surprised by my stance on these issues. If supporters of the political authorities in place prior to the uprisings had the same abilities and tools as I with the maps, they would have produced quite the opposite image. We will always have differences in opinions on whatever issue is presented in a map, but that is the nature of subjectivity. The danger lies where bias overtakes fact and we sacrifice accuracy of documentation for the success of our intentions, something our own media seems to capitalize on quite well in recent times. Consequentially, our best chance is to continue to think critically as we analyze information presented to us. Question who created the map, where they came from, what their goal is, and anything else that may lead to conflict with the truth.

http://g.co/maps/4u2gq

Lab 2 (#16)

Lab 2 (#13)

Lab 2

1.)        The quadrangle is The Beverly Hills Quadrangle.

2.)        The adjacent quadrangles are as follows: Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, and Inglewood.

3.)        This quadrangle was first created with topography compiled in 1966.

4.)        It was created using the National Geodetic Vertical Datum.

5.)        The scale is 1:24 000

6.)        At given scale:

            a.)        5cm=1200 m

            b.)        5in=1.894 mi

            c.)        1mi= 2.64 in

            d.)        3km= 12.5 cm

7.)        The contour interval is 20 feet.

8.)        Approximate geographic coordinates in degrees/minutes/seconds and decimal degrees of:

            a.)        the Public Affairs Building-                            34˚/4’22’’N, 118˚/26’24’’W and                                                                                                        34.073˚, -118.440˚

            b.)        the tip of Santa Monica pier-                         34˚/0’7.5’’N, 118˚/29’40’’W and                                                                                                       34.002˚, -118.494

            c.)        the Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir-          34˚/7’12’’N, 118˚/24’36’’W and

                                                                                                34.120, -118.410

9.)        use Google maps; take midpoint

            a.)        Greystone Mansion (in Greystone Park)-     570 ft./170.736m

            b.)        Woodlawn Cemetery-                                     140ft./42.672m

            c.)        Crestwood Hills Park-                                                660ft./201.17m

10.)      The map is in UTM Zone 11.

11.)      The coordinates are 362000 east, 3763000m north in the bottom left corner.

12.)      Each cell of the UTM gridline contains 1000000m².

13.)      

14.)      The magnetic declination is 14˚

15.)      The intermittent stream flows North to South

16.)      Graphic of UCLA Map:

Maps in Action

This is NOT one of my map submissions, but it might be my favorite site for maps. This site, Maps of War, basically gives videos on the movements of battles and other events in map form. I've listed the link for "March of Democracy", one of my favs, below if you'd care to check it out!
http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/march-of-democracy.html

Poverty and Drinking Water

http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/access-to-safe-drinking-water_de64

http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/world-poverty-distribution_ebf1

These maps were both taken from UNEP's website and I decided to use them together because of the interesting trend between them. The top is a representation of population percentage with access to safe drinking water while the bottom represents the world poverty distribution, using infant mortality rate as an indicator. If you'll note, there is an incredible similarity between the locations of peoples with great limitation in their access to clean water and those with high infant mortality rates. This correlation is not surprising, but it is still interesting, if upsetting, to see the implications of access to basic necessities (or lack thereof) painted out in the form of a map.

Religious Trends Across the US

 As implied by the title, this map highlights the "leading" church bodies across the US. It was taken from American Ethnic Geography's "Map Gallery of Religion in the United States", which shows the population percentages of the religions people identify with and you can click here for all options. Some elements of the map were not surprising to me, like the concentration of Mormons in the Utah area or Baptists in the south, but I didn't realize how large the Catholic population was in America. Nearly all of the US is dominated by a leading religious body that identifies with Christianity, which is logical with our history, but it is still intriguing to see the variation across the board.

LRA Crisis Tracker

LRA Crisis Tracker

This map immediately jumped out at me as a fantastic example of an engaging and valuable use of mapping. Although the image above may not be entirely appealing at first, the accompanying link above (LRA Crisis Tracker) takes the viewer to the map's source page, created by the collective efforts of Invisible Children and Resolve in order to document the movement and nature of attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), especially in the shown areas of Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan. I find this map particularly fascinating because it is interactive as well as time-sensitive. You can select from options of "Crisis Type" to view in plotted map form where specific forms of events have occurred or to view it as a "heat map" to view the concentrations of occurrences. It's updated constantly based upon reports from the radio-network set up by the organizations in the area, but also allows you to scroll through the timeline to look at gathered data from any given period. This map simultaneously grants the public access to a statistical history of the conflict and a current update to remain informed.