Further to my previous post on why visualisation of data matters – and what the potential abuses are in the hands of pressure groups.
I’ve just seen this video by an American pollster and data visualiser @alexlundry – he covers the deceptive use of visualisations and the way that lobbies use them.
He covers the reasons why this is a much more powerful way of presenting information.
He also covers …. oh, just watch the whole thing. It’s only a coupla minutes and it’s very good.
I draw one hefty conclusion from it. We need to find a way to increase public awareness of how this data can be abused, manipulated and misrepresented using the devices that Alex has outlined here. This is an important bit of civil literacy that could counteract many of the threats that I outlined in my previous post here.
Perhaps a Tumblr-type website where any mashups that anyone sees are submitted, then people who know about it (or are prepared to read a few of the books in this presentation) give the mashup points based upon the provenance and honesty of the data and it’s use?
A blog about representative democracy, social media and a conversational politics. How will peer-to-peer communications change local democracy? How is representation changing? 
This is a site I have used which looks at the abuses and uses of graphs and charts. It’s very interesting and often has some very informed discussions around data presentation.
edit: http://junkcharts.typepad.com/junk_charts/
Oh, that is good! Thanks Ricardo. I’ve added it to the blogroll already!
Local MeetUp groups for datavis?
Or maybe take a tip from the Ignite (http://ignite.oreilly.com/) format and host datavis “open mics” for people to stand up and dissect info graphics in five minutes or less…
I agree that this is a big and important topic for 2010 and beyond (census 2011!) – so maybe some local organisation could start to shine this light? I’d be happy to collaborate in Manchester if any readers are interested…
http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/WhyPiesStink/Dashboard1?:embed=yes
Just whipped this up for fun using Tableau Public. Check it out. Click the marks to highlight relevant data.
(Data is fictional, reasons why pie charts stink could be improved as well…)
Thanks MM. It doesn’t seem to embed in the comments – I’ll put it up on a post.
[...] If you watch one video this week, make it this one | Local Democracy – Data visualistion and why it matters. @alexlundry covers the deceptive use of visualisations and the way that lobbies use them. [...]