paper: Battle of Connotations. MacEachren’s typology of Map signs vs. Graphs

(Engels)

This paper focuses on two issues, within the realms of information visualization. Firstly, MacEachren’s typology of connotative map signs is examined by applying them to Google Maps. Google Maps should, following this concept, expose several connotations about the map itself and should expose connotations about the topic mapped. Section 2.1 and 2.2  will briefly summarize the crux of MacEachren’s a lexical approach to map representation, which will be an introduction towards section 2.3 and 2.4. They elaborate respectively on (1) connotations of veracity and -integrity and (2) valuative, and incitive connotations and –power  in conjunction with Google Maps. Secondly, section 3 examines whether MacEachren’s typology concerning connotative signs of maps could be applied to Graphs. By examining Wainer’s (1983) rules of bad data display and the extraction of basic Graph element. Section 4 conclude with an elaboration on the similarities between connotations of map signs and the extracted elements of Graphs.

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