The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has teamed up with Google Maps to bring visualization to the Crisis in Darfur. The Museums mapping initiatives are intended to collate and provide evidence through digital media and eyewitness testimony in Google Earth "to help inform citizens, governments, and institutions about current and potential genocides and related crimes against humanity". These types of initiatives are essentialy to the spread and understanding of the nature of genocides. Putting events to maps provides users with relatable information, and provides a context in which citizens are forced to face this travesty face-to-face.
The personal testimonies on the Google Map's layers of attacks in Darfur provide a completely personal experience and connection with the horrible occurrences in Darfur. This personal connection can provide users with powerful incentive to create change, or at least spread the word of what exactly is going on overseas.
Lisa Parks of UC Santa Barbara believes there are issues with the interface, as well as criticizes Google for its "involvement in the Crisis in Darfur project and use of it to market and extend its brand name..." Although the corporation's involvement in such a politically charged subject-matter can only be beneficial when trying to spread the word about the crisis, I do agree that Google's involvement will certainly only help their public image. Parks also argues that there is a disconnect between social and political change and showing images and testimonials online. She believes that just displaying digital documentations of the travesties occuring in Darfur isn't enough to ensue political change.
Google's involvement not only shows their interest in improving the lives and situations of others, but I think the company is using it's power and popularity to spread information about a very important issue. An issue that needs to be addressed and dealt with before our world is affected by any more genocides.
-Kate Aronson
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