View Biking Tour of Davis, CA in a larger map
By letting individuals create and
update public maps, neogeography lets people literally everywhere share
information with one another and makes a whole new type of knowledge broadly
and easily accessible. Individuals
can add local advice or tourist input that may not be advertised through publicly distributed information or official records. Using neogeography opens infinite opportunities
for sharing experiences and advice relating to geographic locations. By using pre-existing mapping toolkits
and providing instructions, map programs such as Google Maps let almost anyone
basic computer knowledge share their geographic experiences. Individuals do not have to have
advanced cartography skills to share their knowledge about places and
locations.
These same elements of
neogeography, however, can also lead to potential problems and misuse of easily
sharing geographic experiences. Because
anyone can create and access such online maps, individuals with poor or wrong
information can appear professional and knowledgeable through the easy to use
and stylized toolkit of Google Maps.
This could cause later map viewers to become confused or misinformed and
possibly take bad advice that could put them in a less than enjoyable or even
dangerous situation. By providing
limited options for features and details in the toolkit, such mapping toolkits
can actually contribute to misinformation. For example, on my bike tour map I wanted to put a stop at
the dairy barn on UC Davis campus.
There were no options for “farm” or “cows” on the legend though, so I marked
the location with a man on horseback even though there are no horses or
opportunities for riding at the dairy barn. Because of the potential problems that come hand in hand
with the advantages of neogeography, it is essential to remember that other
individuals are creating and altering maps. Therefore, it is every neogeographer’s responsibility to
create maps responsibility and read maps with caution.
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