By: Alberto Cairo
The first time I heard of this book was when I had to read it as part of a media production and design course on processing data into visual representations. The introduction of the book reminds readers that different audiences come from different backgrounds and will see the same information from a different perspective leading to different interpretations and of the principles of journalism.
His perspective echoes that of President John F. Kennedy:
“And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment– the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants”–but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.”
John F. Kennedy
After establishing the foundations of effective data visualisations, Cairo takes the reader on a journey through the fields of light epistemology, across a lake of sociocultural psyschological analysis, and into a clearing in the forest of the scientific method made just for journalism. The heavy math doesn’t come into play until the second half of the book, where Cairo showcases examples of effective and ineffective visual communications for data.
I had the honor of virtually meeting Cairo this October at the Journalism in the Time of Crisis conference in Ottawa. I was a student producer for his panel and wrote two articles on data visualization that week.
Content in the book does require at least extended high school maths to understand, but will be clear and easy enough to understand if you spend enough time admiring and dissecting the colourful graphs and maps.
