The map that I decided to look at was the Caribbean Cholera Map. This map was organised into three main time periods: 1833-1834, 1850-1856,and 1865-1872. Within each time period, you could view the data broken down into months. Each data point on the timeline represented either a Cholera Outbreak, Hurricane, Tropical Storm, or News Article. These points on the map were all colour coded, with the key included in the legend, so that we could tell the difference more easily and be able to visualise the data better.
Looking first at the news articles, on the website I was able to click on each news story to see where it was located on the map, and the details of the news article. I was also able to see which newspaper company reported the story, the source of the news (e.g. spectator), and the date of the story. Tropical storms and hurricanes were also located on the map, with additional details included about the dates and coordinates of the tropical storm/hurricane when you clicked on the pin on the map. Lastly, cholera outbreaks were mapped on as well, with the location and estimated dates included too.
This map therefore reveals information that was included in these news articles about Cholera outbreaks in the Caribbean from 1833-1856. It reflects the point of view of the people compiling this data, because this map serves to visualise the information which they have collected regarding this 19th century cholera outbreaks. It also assumes that the information provided in these news articles about the dates, locations, and death counts of the cholera outbreaks are accurate.
However, as we have discussed in class, this map visualisation is inherently subjective and biased to a certain perspective. For instance, it only includes data from this particular time period, and this particular geographical area. Furthermore, it only includes the information from these certain news articles, although there are probably other news articles reporting on this information too. Additionally, this map serves to highlight the location of these cholera outbreaks onto a physical map, however we are only able to view the map one decade at a time, and cannot compare data points if they are in a separate decade.
Therefore, an alternative map could represent the same data but allow you to specify the time period you would like to look at. It could also represent the point on the map in terms of number of deaths, such that more deaths would be represented with a bigger point on the map. Personally, I am more interested in the severity of these outbreaks and how they spread over time, so I believe that these two changes would provide a more useful visualisation for my understanding of the cholera outbreaks. The website was also quite hard to navigate, and so I think these changes may help viewers visualize the data better.
I chose the Caribbean Cholera and I completely agree about being more concerned with the severity of the outbreaks than location. Disease impacts humans and it’s interesting how the creator of this map didn’t focus on that. In my post, I, like you, suggested using graduated symbols that visualize the impact of the disease by having point representations that are proportional to the amount of deaths that impact the community. I think that would’ve made the map a lot more powerful.