This week we looked at data of squirrel populations in Manhattan in order to learn how to use ArcGIS Online. I had used ArcGIS Online briefly before, but had to add all of my own data, which was quite difficult.
My finished interactive map for this class shows the squirrel populations and WiFi locations in Manhattan. Although I know that squirrel locations and WiFi locations are unrelated data sets, my map makes it appear like squirrels are avoiding WiFi locations, or alternatively, WiFi locations are established away from squirrels.
This shows how mapping can be used to mislead the viewer. Making the deliberate choice to display squirrel locations alongside WiFi locations makes the viewer want to draw conclusions from this data. In reality, maybe the squirrel data was only collected inside the park and the WiFi data was only from outside of the park. There are probably still squirrels outside of the park that were not recorded in the specific data set I am displaying.
When maps are used with great consideration of the potential misuses, they can display really interesting data and you can make important comparisons that would be hard to see without visualizing the data. The spatial humanities is an important field, but it is easy to create misleading maps. It is always important to look at maps with some degree of skepticism before drawing conclusions and critically think about the implications of your map before publishing.
Hey!
When I tried to visit your web app, there was an error in loading the map. I had the same problem when I was first working on this, but Austin was able to help. What I had to do was change all web maps and feature layers to be public. To do this, check out the Content tab in ArcGIS and make sure each web map and feature layer are global.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for this! I was struggling to get mine to display and this fixed it.
As you imply, it is easy for maps themselves to be misleading, misrepresented, and misinterpreted, but I liked how you addressed and warned of how easy it is in the creation stage of the process. It is hard for a creator of visualization to control how their maps are going to be used, to be interpreted or misinterpreted, especially if they don’t question their data and its collection process.