In this Election Cycle…It’s All About the Map

In my ‘geocentric’ world, if Google Earth didn’t excite your feelings about maps and mapping technology, then this year’s U.S. presidential election should have told you it was ‘all about the map.’ Since the summer, I’ve been blogging at our other publication, Map Hawk, about how the media uses mapping technology. Many of the maps in use by online media outlets were using Flash technology, some were on Google, and some still just static maps. Because of the nature of our red vs. blue leanings, it has been somewhat easy to identify the country’s persuasion best by putting them on a map. More so than at any time in the past, maps are the platform to more easily convey results. They technology has been there, and as CNN has so marvelously shown, the display technology has been there as well. I suspect this has changed the way the mainstream media will forever report news. It already has because of the use of Google Earth was prevalent before this, but the specificity with which the campaigns where pinpointing candidate rallies and thus the emphasis on certain states and districts, maps became both the reporting mechanism…and sometimes the news themselves.  And that’s where the use of the technology must eventually lead…much greater detail must be paid to reporting the results at the precinct level (not just county), real-time information I suspect will be more readily available as results could be reported electronically, and there will be an ever greater use of web services to support news flow. We’ve seen maps, GIS, and other forms of location technology in this cycle come to the forefront plus websites like TwitterVoteReport and other social networking platforms display geospatial information. I guess maps really are…"cool."