Activism and Advocacy with Data-driven Narratives
Activism and Advocacy with Data-driven Narratives
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activism-and-advocacy-with-data-driven-narratives
Slides for a Columbia SIPA classOn Github abelsonlive / activism-and-advocacy-with-data-driven-narratives
Data for Communication and Impact
Brian Abelson | @brianabelson | brianabelson@gmail.comSenior Data Scientist, Enigma
Fellow, Tow Center
slides: bit.ly/1JI2zA1
Why Data-driven Narratives?
- Data enables the exploration of relationships, trends, and anecodotes you might not otherwise have access to or might be hard to clearly communicate.
- Data is varnished with the veneer of "truth".
- Data-driven narratives have the potential to place the audience in the story.
Why not Data-driven Narratives?
- Data fetishism can distract from the human-elements of a story.
- Data is varnished with the veneer of "truth".
- Data can be misleading or hard to interpret (even for the author).
The Good
A good data narrative has the same principles of a good piece of writing.- Clearly communicates the central point.
- Makes a creative and compelling argument.
- Responsibly qualifies or complicates its claims.
- Provides avenues for future exploration.
The Bad
Good data narratives are all alike;
every bad data narrative is bad in its own way.
The Ugly
Don't Do This:Tufte's 10 rules
Show your Data Use Graphics Avoid ChartJunk Utilize Data-ink Use Labels Utilize Micro/Macro Seperate Layers Use Multiples Utilize Color Understand NarrativeRussian Troops in Ukraine - BuzzFeed
Speeding Cops - Sun Sentinel
Drought's Footprint - New York Times
What is a "NewsApp"?
- A large, web-based interactive database that tells a journalistic story using software instead of word and pictures.
- An tool for placing your audience inside a story.
- A utility for for generating new stories.
- A "Good" Dashboard