Stories and Maps: Postmodernism and Professional Communication

Maps are effective because they work without effort. If they admit debate—is the property line exactly there? or is it over a foot?—then they are labelled "inaccurate" and "flawed," or worse, "subjective" or "political."

But every map is by definition "subjective" or "inaccurate" in some sense or another. The very reason we make and use maps is because they allow us to selectively omit things, to understand our stories within particular contexts.

In many ways, we can define communication as the processes of selecting, removing, and connecting pieces of information for various contexts and people.

When we determine these things—selecting what, removing what, connecting where, what context, which people—we are always acting within and with power.