scholarly journals “Missing/Unspecified”: Demographic Data Visualization During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-87
Author(s):  
Rachel Atherton
Keyword(s):  
Data Visualization ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Black People ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Early Data ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Data Visualizations

While data 1 has shown that COVID-19 disproportionately affects Black people, the CDC’s early data listed race as “missing/unspecified” at high rates. Incomplete demographic data obscures the virus’s full impact on marginalized communities. Without more information about who the virus is affecting and how, we cannot protect our most vulnerable. This article demonstrates disconnects between reported datasets and data visualizations in public-facing COVID health and science communication and suggests steps that technical and professional communicators can take in creating or using data visualizations accurately and ethically to describe COVID conditions and impacts.

Between automation and interpretation : Using data visualization in social media analytics companies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salla-Maaria Laaksonen ◽  
Juho Pääkkönen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Data Visualization ◽  
Social Media Analytics ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Representational Practice ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Data Visualizations ◽  
Knowledge Claims

This chapter explores the use of data visualizations in social media analytics companies. Drawing on a dataset of ethnographic field notes and thematic interviews in four Finnish social media analytics companies, we argue that data visualizations are crucially involved in how analytics-based knowledge claims become accepted by companies and their clients. Basing on previous research on visualizations in organizations and as a representational practice, we explore their role in social media analytics. We identify three practices of using visualizations, which we have named have simple-boxing, flatter-boxing, and pretty-boxing. We argue that these practices enable analysts to achieve the simultaneous aims of producing credible and valuable analytics in a context marked by high business promises.

Visualization of Railroad Equipment Accident Causes Using Data Visualization Systems and GIS

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trefor Williams ◽  
John Betak
Keyword(s):  
Data Visualization ◽  
The United States ◽  
Complex Interaction ◽  
Visualization System ◽  
System A ◽  
Train Speed ◽  
Grade Crossing ◽  
Visualization Systems ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Data Visualizations

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how GIS and data visualization systems can be used to identify spatial relationships to add to our understanding of railroad accident factors. Examples are given of the spatial analysis of broken rail accidents and grade crossing accidents on GIS maps. Additionally, using the Weave data visualization system a data dashboard was constructed that shows the complex interaction between variables like track type, FRA track classification, train speed and track density with broken rail accident causes. The findings indicate that broken rail accidents occur most frequently in the Midwest. Possibly this trend is related to climate change and increased temperatures and precipitation in the United States. GIS visualizations also showed that many truck-trailer accidents at grade crossings occur in low population areas. This work indicates that GIS and data visualizations are a useful method of identifying trends in railroad accidents.

scholarly journals Using Data Visualization to Examine an Academic Library Collection

2017 ◽  
Vol 77 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jannette L. Finch ◽  
Angela R. Flenner
Keyword(s):  
Data Visualization ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Graphical Analysis ◽  
Library Collection ◽  
Excellent Starting Point ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Library Book ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The University ◽  
Data Visualizations

The authors generated data visualizations to compare sections of the library book collection, expenditures in those areas, student enrollment in majors and minors, and number of courses. The visualizations resulting from the entered data provide an excellent starting point for conversations about possible imbalances in the collection and point to areas that are either more developed or less developed than is needed to support the major and minor areas of study at the university. The methodology used should offer a template to follow for others wishing to examine their collection and may prove valuable for adjusting expenditures, suggesting service opportunities or for marketing pieces of the collection that had been hidden before graphical analysis.

scholarly journals Infographics And Public Policy: Using Data Visualization To Convey Complex Information

2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (11) ◽  
pp. 1901-1907 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer J. Otten ◽  
Karen Cheng ◽  
Adam Drewnowski
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Data Visualization ◽  
Complex Information ◽  
Using Data

scholarly journals Data Visualization + Scrollytelling for Election News Stories : Challenges and Perspectives

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Corbeil ◽  
Florent Daudens ◽  
Thomas Hurtut
Keyword(s):  
Data Visualization ◽  
French Language ◽  
Daily Newspaper ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The Past ◽  
Narrative Format ◽  
Election News ◽  
Data Visualizations

This visual case study is conducted by Le Devoir, a Canadian french-language independent daily newspaper gathering around 50 journalists and one million readers every week. During the past twelve months, in collaboration with Polytechnique Montreal, we investigated a scrollytelling format strongly relying on combined series of data visualizations. This visual case study will specifically present one of the news stories we published, which communicates electoral results the day after the last Quebec general election. It gathers all the lessons that we learnt from this experience, the challenges that we tackled and the perspectives for the future. Beyond the specific electoral context of this work, these conclusions might be useful for any practitioner willing to communicate data visualization based stories, using a scrollytelling narrative format.

What we talk about when we talk about beautiful data visualizations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Brinch
Keyword(s):  
Data Visualization ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Visualization Design ◽  
Data Visualizations

‘Beautiful’ is an adjective often used in descriptions of well-designed data visualizations. How the concept is used, however, reveals that it is applied to characterize a variety of qualities. Going beyond mere descriptions, the use of the concept also lays bare a certain ambivalence among scholars and practitioners towards how beauty matters, and which means it serves in data visualization. Interrogating ‘beautiful’ as a characterizing word, combined with a study of cases of ‘best practice’ used as examples of beautiful visualizations in various discourses, this chapter presents an analysis of what is regarded as beautiful within the field of data visualization design. This, in turn, can inform the understanding of what beauty means in visualizing data, in the purpose of facilitating the viewer’s comprehension and engagement.

The political significance of data visualization: Four key perspectives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torgeir Uberg Nærland
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Data Visualization ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Progressive Change ◽  
The Status ◽  
Data Visualizations

Practitioners and scholars alike assume that data visualization can have political significance—as vehicle for progressive change, manipulation, or maintaining the status quo. There are, however, a variety of ways in which we can think of data visualization as politically significant. These perspectives imply differing notions of both ‘politics’ and ‘significance’. Drawing upon political and social theory, this chapter identifies and outlines four key perspectives: data visualization and 1) public deliberation, 2) ideology, 3) citizenship, and 4) as a political-administrative steering tool. The aim of this chapter is thus to provide a framework that helps clarify the various contexts, processes, and capacities through which data visualizations attain political significance.

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