Infographics supply tangible data to otherwise abstract concepts.
While watching the course of journalism change over the past few decades, it has been interesting in the least to observe an era in which media content merges with computer animations to create dynamic storytelling. As I was watching the “Journalism in Age of Data”, I witnessed an abundance of data-driven journalism, in which hard-news stories were brought to life with detailed infographics for visualization. This newly presented format of journalism seemingly paved the way for computer-textual journalism, which gathered together tad-bits of information on a particular subject matter, and then presented that subject matter in both innovative and thought-provoking ways. The documentary highlighted the efforts of IBM to synchronize data and visual storytelling through a website called ManyEyes.com; a site that I had visited previously. Experts outlined that the creation of the info-graphic website began as an online experiment to present data to people about the trends in their communities and allow them to interpret it in different ways. They allured that “1/2 of our brains hardwired for visualization—and that we are so programmed to learn about the world around us from what we see”. This ideology has also translated across other design companies, like the Google Creative Lab, which exercised its expertise of infographic design by creating one for air traffic over North America during a 24hr period.
Data organization is a valid component of data visualization.
Aside from these game-changing info-graphic elements being applied to journalism, one of the underlining pivots I realized from the documentary was the importance in making storytelling compelling within the use of the digital medium. Several key points resonated with me from the Data Visualization in Journalism segment of the video. As the current CEO of Google presented it, data visualization entails “the ability to take data and understand it, to extract it, and to process it is a huge skill in an era of ubiquitous data”. This quote is an accurate summary for me of what is expected, provoked and manipulated in the discipline of infographic journalism. In a sense, I was enlightened that the method to effectively presenting data in journalism was gathering data, both facts and statistics, from the happenings of the world around us and accompanying them with vivid graphics to create a story that intrigued the viewer, that they be both informed and entertained. Yet, there was one trend surrounding infographic journalism that the infographic designers were becoming more focused on the design element of data storytelling than even the story itself. This rise aroused the question “how do you get the story from the data?” The New York Times, which focused on data visualization as a discipline, created an infographic titled “Obamas 2011 Budget Proposal” which used porcupine sticks to display the statistics. There was another graphic that was even more creative from the New York Times called “Ebb and The Box Office”, which extravagantly displayed data about Blockbuster-hit movies in a multi-colored tunnel. The visual extraction process was so complex that there was a text box beside the graph that told the viewer just exactly how to read it.
But what of this change? Can infographic design in journalism survive by with graphics that have visual elements that so abstract and appealing that the viewer is distracted or doesn’t recognize the underlying message? Ben Fry, a design & software consulted featured in the film said that “to bring across the sense of wonder, & try to get more people curious—[designers] need it to be a lot more about art and writing.” However, the new direction of graphic-complimented journalism is right now involves computer programming. And in my opinion, and from the perspective of interactive journalism, it makes sense. The rationale behind this information design followed what appeared to be “The Martini Glass Structure” is that the viewer opens up the data for more exploration (finding the balance). In many cases, the information is presented using an interactive slider (a solution to having to much data in one place) and a drill-down story. This new trend: “data visualization meets motion graphics meets narrative”—Professor Hernandez of University of California (Berkley).
It is interesting to divulge in the various elements that have enabled journalism in the digital age to be more advanced, personal, and most importantly interactive. The fact that this era of journalism simulates real-life controversies all through the use of data can serve as a real eye-opener for millions of people. Hooray for the convergence of computer graphics, computer science and broadcast commentary!