The information graphic in the link above shows how a visualisation can help us to see things that would be hard to organise or view otherwise, e.g. if it was just numbers on a sheet. In my opinion it is far more engaging to look at an information graphic that's visually easy to understand, rather than a page of numbers or statistics.
In a sense, they allow us to see things in a way which we would normally not be bothered to look at or consider. Does this change publics or rather, the way they act/think/behave or feel towards a situation? I have no doubt people have thought about how dominant Google is in the digital market, but have they actually seen the statistics, or bothered to do a comparison of them and their competitors? That's where visualizing data gives it so much more impact. If we look at this simple information graphic we can see how Google is starting to dominate the market, backed by facts and statistics but in a simple and easy visualisation rather than bits of pieces of statistics on the web. I would say it is making the invisible visible!
Also, if we take a look at the following example:
We've heard so much about the Taliban from the media for years, but if we look at the information graphic from http://terror.periscopic.com/ we can see that ISIS has been around since 2002, and we've only recently heard about them. In 2004, yes 10 years ago, ISIS killed 912 people compared to 436 by Taliban. What if this information graphic had been widely published? The public may have known about ISIS long before the media storm, could it be argued that visualisations can change the opinion of the public?
Another example would be http://dirtyenergymoney.com/.
I found it really interesting because its actually an interactive tool that tracks the flow of oil, gas and coal industry contributions to the US congress. It's taking data that would be so difficult to compile and putting it into a simple visualisation that's easy to understand and comprehend, yet complex enough to be able to see which politician received how much contributions, and from who... This certainly would be able to change public opinion on the matter, and far more effective than jumbled up numbers and statistics or just words on a page.
Another question to ask is can the role of the visual, sound and code and their combination transform publishing/publics? How do changes in the way what we see is organised change us?
My answer would be yes, it can transform publishing and publics. I can think of the perfect example. a 'vine', which is a short video, usually a funny one. Personally, this way of publishing (short videos) has subtly affected me in a way. I usually shy away from longer videos now, and except something funny to be a really short clip and for it to happen instantly. If I were to watch a longer video, I'd definitely skip the boring parts and try to get to the good part. Even when I watch football highlights I just want to see when the magic happens and sometimes not the build-up play.
What about tweets? I'm so used to reading short snippets of information that sometimes I expect things to be condensed in a few sentences so I can catch the gist of it before deciding if I should spend my time further reading the article. The way Twitter works also allows me to access publications that I'm interested in, rather than say read an entire newspaper. For me, the publishing style of Twitter changes the organisation of how I view news, and it's changed me because I just want to read what I'm interested in, and I want small snippets of information as a preview.
What about Instagram as a publishing tool? This video is a really interesting way to look at how the publishing of pictures of Instagram has affected us socially, as a society as well as individually and perhaps has even changed the way we live our lives.
"The Instagram generation now experiences the present as an anticipated memory" - Professor Daniel Kahneman.
No comments:
Post a Comment