The digital human. Maps 5/6.

Aleks Krotoski explores how the digitisation of maps has changed the way we see the world. She speaks to Bob Egan who owns a website called popspots where he posts his research on tracking locations of pop culture and rock music albums. Next, Simon Garfield questions maps and map makers because he tells us maps are like biographies, the information in them is selected usually to tell a specific story. Paula Williams adds that all maps are made for a reason and that maps say more about cartographers than they do about locations. Manik Gupta, product manager at Google maps, says that digital maps are useful to organise data and make it accessible and empower users. On the other hand, Professor Lee Burger is a fossil hunter who tells his story about making a discovery that was almost ruined by using Google maps. Mark Graham weighs in on the debate and says that the decision making process for data going into Google maps creates a black box which is a space where users do not know what is happening in the background and the intentions of the map makers remain hidden. Aleks Krotoski continues to talk about an open mapping movement and she suggests that communities and individuals should be able to make personal meaningful maps.