Content Analysis, Semiotics, and Social Semiotics for Cartographic Analysis: Interpreting Geospatial Representations

Abstract

Several mutually informing methods for analyzing cartographic and geospatial images are presented and illustrated in this work. First, an apparently objective method, content analysis, is applied to a collection of corporate annual reports' geospatial imagery resulting in a categorization and description of those images. Then a traditional semiotic analysis is conducted on the same data done by experts who describe and express out of their personal expertise and intuitive insights the meaning of signs contained in the imagery. Subsequently, a user/viewer epistemological and ontological framework called sense-making is discussed and combined with semiotic processes enabling social semiotics. Sense-making permits map users to present their point of view providing a method to go beyond the experts' traditional semiotic interpretations. These user/viewer based interpretations incorporate postmodern meanings from the various users of signs exposed by the corporate annual reports' geospatial imagery.