Politics and Maps: A Critical Review of German News Maps on the War Against Terrorism in Afghanistan
Subject of Research
The survey at hand started on September 14
th, as soon as press news focused on Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaida-network with published sketch maps of Afghanistan. Remembering the media control during the second Gulf War in 1990/91, the question arose:
- Do news maps contribute to an unbiased information about regions at war?
The "War against Terror" in Afghanistan is often also correlated with Huntington’s model of the "clash of civilizations", and his argument for "simplified paradigms and maps as prerequisites for man’s thinking and acting" (HUNTINGTON 1996) serves as another entry point:
- How do simplified and generalized news maps represent complex realities?
This survey includes a total of 255 maps and map-related graphics. The analysis is supplemented by a questionnaire survey of the papers’ editorial offices to assess their editing policies with regard to news maps.
Frequencies of News Maps
The chronology of events in Afghanistan and of the publication of news maps in German papers clearly shows that news maps are still far from being a regular means of information. A statistical break-up shows that nationwide newspapers and weekly news magazines, as well as the yellow press/tabloid papers publish the majority of these maps, regional and local dailies only occasionally publish news maps.
Satellite and aerial imagery are quite common (18 cases), and occasionally show pre- and post-strike comparisons. These images rely on military sources, and the intentional alteration of contents ("censorship") has to be considered.
Combined or matched presentations, ranging from simple combinations of maps of different scales to complex compilations of maps, photos, other graphics or headline-style text-elements, show a wide distribution. A subtype uses coloured maps of coarse resolution mainly as background of page-wide headlines
Formal Shortcomings in News Maps
The formal analysis of news maps clearly shows general and particularly technical shortcomings: nearly 60 percent of the maps come without a scale, only around 22 percent show data references, information on map-editors or drafts persons. There are even global maps with area-distorting map projections, showing “The Western World” bigger than tropical areas. These critical issues are commonly introduced in cartography textbooks (cf. MONMONIER 1996) as well as in German textbooks on information graphics (cf. LIEBIG 1999; JANSEN & SCHARFE 1999). According to these authors, newspaper drafts persons' generally lack basic cartographic knowledge. Data references are systematically missing in repeatedly printed sketch maps of recognized nation-wide dailies. In contrast all maps and satellite imagery provided by external agencies are indicated with references.
Additionally, most ethnic and demographic maps on Afghanistan show no data references and do not even mention that the data is based on pre-Soviet invasion estimates! These maps also represent pictures of homogenous ethnic territories with no hint to more complex distribution patterns at regional and local levels.
Graphical Representation – the Narrow Edge to Sensational Maps
There are distinctive differences regarding the modes of graphical representation, such as the utilization of colours, size of maps, formal styles as well as layout issues. In the yellow press and weekly news magazines coloured maps reach up to 100 percent coverage. This does not necessarily lead to a more detailed and differentiated presentation: especially tabloid papers often use coloured maps as full-page eye catchers or as a supplement to headlines. Daily newspapers mainly use small-scale maps as a supplement to the particular topic and other maps are of medium size and frequently located close to the page’s main headlines - often in weekly newspapers.
This discussion leads further to the assessment of functional issues and sensational practises of news maps publications. A major indicator for this – mainly subjective – differentiation is the occurrence of additional graphical elements, which do not provide any spatial or topical information. Examples are photographs or photo-realistic graphics of people, such as Osama bin Laden, of combat units, fighter planes or warships etc. – such maps are generally classified as sensational ones.
According to HARLEY (1988), these “marginalities” are proof of the map editors’ main (political) agenda.
In extreme cases the representation of weapon systems even covers more paper space than territories like Afghanistan. Thus, sensational maps clearly represent the “Western Superiority”, whether intended or not, and offer a biased form of information. The particular statistics show clear clusters of sensational maps in the yellow press and in one weekly news magazine, occasionally also in generally serious dailies.
Topographical Relief Presentation
Since the territory of Afghanistan consists of huge hilly and mountainous areas which are not at all easily accessible, terrain information is supposed to be important for common readers. However, just 25 percent of the maps show any kind of terrain information. Some of the coloured maps present altitudinal zonations similar to those in atlases. There are, however, often huge mistakes, such as a map in one weekly magazine with coloured altitudinal zones and additional climate-graphs, including the stations’ altitude. But the stations’ locations in the map are repeatedly shown in completely wrong altitudinal zones, with differences of more than a thousand metres altitude.