The Power of Maps and the War against Terrorism in Afghanistan: A Critical Review of German News Maps

Abstract

Contrary to the general perception of maps as objective sources, new approaches in the social sciences strongly deny any objective and neutral representation since maps are socially or politically constructed artefacts. The new task is to deconstruct the map, to explore political interests and power relations underlying the production of maps. In the present study, implicit connotations of map meanings are particularly important aspects. Protagonists of the "Clash of Civilisations" argue that wars will occur especially along the divisions between cultures and that wars will lead to new global "white spots". Contrary to such generalizations, it is, however, obvious that the current media coverage of wars has, in spite of different technical as well as topical shortcomings, actually erased "white spots", at least if "Western" interests are directly involved. In this study, new maps on the "War against Terror" in Afghanistan - taken from a sample of German papers - are analysed and compared with maps in South Asian papers.