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“ It ’s like total across a clearing in the jungle . ”
Those are the words used by data diarist David McCandless when discussing the economic value and consequence of data visualizations in a2010 TED Talk .
In a world where it ’s easy to finger that we ’re “ all suffering from information overburden or data oversupply , ” McCandless add together , visual image offer a cleaner , leaner alternative to the more dull - and - dense esthetic offer by traditional data representations .
Given their aforementioned characteristic and digital media ’s grim pursuit of new mediums and ways to progress loyal audiences , bright and shiny data visualisation are much omnipresent today — so much so that some might consider them to be a 21st - century phenomenon .
Of naturally , a fiddling digging shows that this is n’t on the button the case . While the vividness may be a piece more vivid and the gadget on which we watch the visualizations entirely new , the fact is that people have altered the physical form of data to convey a more aerodynamic , visually impactful subject matter for one C .
For instance , statisticianHans Rosling traces the dayspring of the infographic backto Florence Nightingale , the 19th - century nanny and statistician who revolutionise USA and civilian healthcare .
And , you guessed it , Nightingale used data visualizations to make her case : In 1856 , as Rosling note , Nightingale indicate for health care reform via aseries of Proto-Indo European charts , which she conceive would " affect thro ' the eyes what we fail to fetch to the world through their word - proof ears . ”
But perhaps one of the most significant , if not underappreciated , former examples of data visualization get from none other than W.E.B. DuBois . Indeed , in 1900 , the African - American sociologist presented “ The American Negro at Paris , ” a series of 32 charts , 500 photographs , and oodles of maps to capture the history and nowadays of African - Americans in the United States — all of which were , DuBois would compose , “ planned and executed by Black person , and collected and establish under the direction of a negro special broker . ”
Before the exposition , DuBois had devoted himself to collecting evidence on the everyday affair of African - Americans in the U.S. in gild to , as the Library of Congress mark , scrap racism — specifically the “ the claims of biologic airstream scientists influential at the time , which propose that African - Americans were inherently inferior to Anglo - Americans . ”
By using datum to march the economic and cultural diversity of the African - American population , DuBois hop to do away with what he call “ conventional American ideas ” about African - Americans .
The infographics and chart DuBois and his black peers made would , in his eyes , play a critical character in shatter stale , racist ideas about African - Americans in the U.S. “ We have thus , it may be seen , an honest , straightforward exhibit of a low nation of people , render their life and evolution without excuse or gloss , and above all made by themselves , ” DuBois indite of the exhibit .
But it was n’t just the process of visualizing the data that mattered to DuBois ; it ’s what that information communicated to a broader consultation .
“ When the inevitable question uprise , ‘ What are these guided groups doing for themselves ? ’ there is in the whole construction no more supporting answer than that given by the American negroes , who are here shown to be studying , prove , and thinking of their own onward motion and prognosis . ”
Next , check outthese maps that will modify the elbow room you mean about the United States . Then , have a look at 33 moremaps that explain Americabetter than any text .
