The design and composition of persuasive maps

Persuasive maps are ubiquitous in society, yet cartographers have largely neglected to conduct serious, holistic research on them. Persuasive maps represent a form of visual communication that differs markedly from scientific geovisualization. First, many of these maps' communicative goals are anathema to those of scientific representation. Second, many persuasive maps ignore and defy established cartographic conventions. This article argues two things. First, the cartographic discipline can gain insight about how maps communicate information from the longitudinal and holistic analysis of persuasive maps. By comparing the differences and similarities of persuasive maps to scientific geovisualizations, researchers can begin to understand how persuasive maps communicate differently than scientific ones. Second, breaking persuasive maps down into composite parts may make it possible to identify persuasive map norms (i.e., methods of design that are embraced by producers of persuasive maps). The results of a content analysis of 256 persuasive maps are discussed. The article concludes that it may be possible to take the most statistically significant results from this study to begin identifying different rhetorical styles of persuasive maps. Keywords: persuasive maps; rhetorical maps; content analysis; map design
Introduction Cartographers have treated persuasive maps like unwanted stepchildren. Maps that have been created 'with the purpose of eliciting one particular interpretation over others from map readers' (Tyner 1982, 140, [...]