Circulation and Use of Maps - Participatory Mapping: New Data, New Cartography - page 110

- If some cartographers use maps as a lobbying tool, they
do not get involved in the debate on the dangerousness of the
radiation levels but only on the absence or low quality of
online data.

7.1.1. Making the data visible

Designing a map is firstly presented as a way of obtaining
a depiction of the radiation status in Japan. Marian
Steinbach emphasizes the lack of available data as a motive
for his decision:

I figured out that there was not really a way […]
for people in Japan […] and not for anywhere else
in the world to get the current overview of the
current radiation status that goes really deep or
that informs people. Interview with Marian

Steinbach, August 25, 2011

As he puts it, making alternative data available online
and making those data easy to re-use aims at informing
citizens, which implies that the data shown until then did
not meet that goal. The notion of “clarifying” is also stressed
by Andreas Schneider in his map for the Institute for
Information Design Japan (Table 6.1, map no. 4). He draws
the link between information and action: better-informed
individuals will make better-informed decisions, for example
when it comes to evacuating their homes or consuming
agricultural products. Moreover, maps are created to make
information easier to understand by the general public:

Initially and also now the foremost purpose was
to provide the general public with
UNDERSTANDABLE information - information
out into context. [ sic ] Andreas Schneider,

interview by email, July 30, 2011