Stories and Maps: Postmodernism and Professional Communication

The first instinct is to say that this information helps people on campus locate just such a call box in case of an emergency. But consider the situation in which this would occur—will the user have a telephone book with them (for Purdue's West Lafayette campus, a nearly 400-page volume) if they are not already near a phone? Probably not. The effect of the map is not safety, but the message "You're safe" by virtue of the immense number of safety zones shown on the map. (There are still decided benefits of the map—it does raise awareness of the existence of emergency call boxes, increasing the likelihood that a person in danger would think to look for one.)