Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cartographic Design for Public Communication of Environmental Information

博士论文研究：环境信息公共传播的制图设计

• 批准号: 1735747
• 负责人: Cynthia Brewer
• 金额: $ 1.6万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-07-15 至 2019-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1735747&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Cartographic; Design

This doctoral dissertation project investigates how maps have been designed and used by the mass media in stories about environmental issues, and what aspects of map design prompt map readers to share these maps on social media. Scientists and science communicators face the challenge of making environmental issues relatable, tangible, and understandable for a broad audience. Maps and other graphics are a powerful way of communicating such issues to the public as maps can help visualize impacts as well as mitigation and adaptation strategies to the public. To date there has been little specific research in cartography focused on how maps with environmental science are produced, reproduced, and shared across a wide range of media, social media, and government agency outlets. The connection between what information is made public, and how, is not well understood, yet has broad significance to science and society for environmental mitigation and adaptation efforts. The results of this research will be shared directly with scientists and science communicators and stands to benefit society by helping to provide clear and transferable guidelines for designing maps for public understanding and dissemination. Maps are used ubiquitously to illustrate environmental change. Few studies in cartography, however, have focused on the specific issues associated with cartographically communicating environmental change related to the complexity, uncertainty, and multi-dimensionality of the issues. Additionally, within the cartographic research community, there has been a recent push to focus on context-specific maps and on maps that matter for social and environmental issues. This project uses a mixed methods research design to answer four broad questions: (1) What organizations design environmental change maps for the public in the United States? (2) What patterns emerge from evaluating the content and cartographic design of these maps? (3) What are the communication goals of environmental change mapmakers and how are these goals reflected in the map and design decisions? (4) What aspects of cartographic design increase map readers' likelihood to share these maps on social media? The project integrates content analysis, interviews, and survey methods to examine patterns related to where and how these maps are produced, what content and cartographic design they employ, how design decisions are made for communicating to a wide audience, and what aspects of cartography of environmental change maps lead map readers to share these maps more broadly. Qualitative and statistical analysis will be used to assess and synthesize these results. Findings will provide a comprehensive assessment of cartographic design for better communicating environmental change.

这个博士论文项目调查了地图是如何被设计和使用的大众媒体在关于环境问题的故事，以及地图设计的哪些方面促使地图读者在社交媒体上分享这些地图。科学家和科学传播者面临的挑战是使环境问题变得相关，有形，并为广大受众所理解。 地图和其他图形是向公众传达这些问题的一种强有力的方式，因为地图可以帮助向公众形象地展示影响以及缓解和适应战略。到目前为止，很少有专门的研究，在地图制图专注于如何与环境科学的地图制作，复制，并在广泛的媒体，社交媒体和政府机构网点共享。公开哪些信息和如何公开信息之间的联系尚未得到很好的理解，但对科学和社会的环境缓解和适应工作具有广泛的意义。这项研究的结果将直接与科学家和科学传播者分享，并有助于为公众理解和传播地图提供明确和可转移的指导方针，从而造福社会。地图被广泛用于说明环境变化。然而，很少有研究在制图，专注于与制图沟通环境变化相关的复杂性，不确定性和多维度的问题的具体问题。此外，在制图研究界，最近一直在推动把重点放在针对具体情况的地图和对社会和环境问题有重要意义的地图上。本项目采用混合方法研究设计来回答四个广泛的问题：（1）在美国，哪些组织为公众设计环境变化地图？(2)从评估这些地图的内容和制图设计中得出了什么样的模式？(3)环境变化地图制作者的沟通目标是什么？这些目标如何反映在地图和设计决策中？(4)地图设计的哪些方面增加了地图读者在社交媒体上分享这些地图的可能性？该项目整合了内容分析，访谈和调查方法，以研究与这些地图在哪里以及如何制作有关的模式，他们采用的内容和制图设计，如何做出设计决策以与广泛的受众进行沟通，以及环境变化地图制图的哪些方面导致地图读者更广泛地分享这些地图。定性和统计分析将用于评估和综合这些结果。调查结果将提供一个全面的评估，更好地沟通环境变化的制图设计。