ABSTRACT
Cartography can be explained, analyzed and understood in several ways. Attempts have been made to emphasize the artistic element of cartography while others have focused more on its technological characteristics. The role of maps was very often explained from a perspective of how they function as artefacts. The papers such as 'The Map as a Communication System' by Arthur H. Robinson and Barbara Bartz Petchenik, first published in The Cartographic Journal in 1975, were among the first to offer a more holistic explanation of the function of maps and thus a new view towards defining cartography as a communication science. The understanding of the map as an instrument of communication between a cartographer and a map percipient still carries some value today. The communication paradigm is useful, but it also has its limitations, which become clearer when digital cartography, and especially interactivity with maps, are considered.
