Map communication model: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:07, 4 November 2009

Revision as of 22:05, 2 August 2010

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== History ==

Although this was a postwar discovery, the Map Communication Model (MCM) has its roots in [[information theory]] developed in the [[telephone]] industry before the war began. Mathematician, inventor, and teacher [[Claude Shannon]] worked at [[Bell Labs]] after completing his Ph.D. at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] in 1940. Shannon applied mathematical theory to information and demonstrated that communication could be reduced to binary digits ([[bitsbit]]s) of positive and negative circuits. This information could be coded and transmitted across a [[Electronic noise|noisy]] [[interface (computer science)|interface]] without losing any meaning. Once the information was received it was then decoded by the listener; the integrity of the information remained intact. In producing meaningful sounds that could be measured for quality, Shannon produced the beginning of information theory and [[digital communication]] through circuits of on and off [[electric switch|switches]].

Shannon developed his ideas more thoroughly in the 1940s at the same time that [[geographer]] and [[cartographer]] [[Arthur H. Robinson]] returned from the [[Second World War]] during which he had served as cartographer for the military. Robinson found that cartographers were significantly limited because artists could make more effective maps than geographers. Upon returning from the war, Robinson worked to remedy this problem at [[Ohio State University]] where he was a graduate student. His ''The Look of Maps'' emphasizes the importance of lettering, map design, map structure, color, and technique.