'A new map is unrolling before us': Cartography in News Media Representations of Post-Cold War Europe

Abstract

The 1990s have witnessed the publication of a plethora of maps in the British news media on the subject of the 'new Europe'. These graphic representations are part of a broad debate concerning the emerging post-Cold War European political landscape. This paper explores these maps and their role in the propagation of new European identities and geopolitical discourse. The study reveals a subtle change from triumphalist Western representations of the European political landscape, especially the eastward expansion of Western ideals and institutions as a route to regional security, during the early 1990s, to a re-trenchment into 'realist' images, more redolent of the Cold-War period, in recent years. The study is itself the product of recent developments in cartographic research which seeks to uncover and understand the social-political impact of medium.