Author: coleslaw1549

Ding Blog Post

In this article by Ding she talks about how professionals as well as the public used alternative media to participate in unofficial risk communication during the 2002 SARS outbreak in China. Whereas whistle-blowers used alternative media such as independent overseas Chinese Web sites and contesting Western media, anonymous professionals and the larger communities relied more on guerrilla media such as text messages and word of mouth to disseminate risk messages during official silence and denial.

The picture below is a riot happening in another country. Most of the riots and protest go unheard of or if people do hear about them it’s not until weeks maybe months later when everything is over or there is nothing to be done to help. These happenings around the world match up very closely with this quote by Ding, “This anomaly in the news reporting pattern was preceded and followed by media underreporting and, most of the time, official silence.” When stuff like this happens around the world we tend to shift our eyes away and turn the focus onto something else. Why does there have to be so much silence about these horrible things going on? Why do we sit idly, not assisting or at least spreading the word of these happenings? Rather we just pretend they aren’t there and go on like nothing is happening because it doesn’t involve us.

Image result for riots

With many authorities censoring different types of media, how are you able to use rhetoric in order to publish something that can be published, yet still be able to carry an underlying message that would otherwise be censored from the people?


Segel & Heer Blog Post

In this article by Segel and Heer they discuss how the arrangement and organization of various case studies are used to change the effectiveness of the piece of media, data, or graphic that is trying to display information. Throughout reading the article there are bolded terms which are techniques that are being used throughout each case study and how they are used effectively or not. With a majority of the case studies looked at you begin to see the trend of the same word popping up again and again such as, “timeline slider,” “progress bar,” “consistent visual platform.” With these reoccurring terms it just goes to show what is working and what isn’t and clearly if each of these case studies are using these techniques something about them has to be effective and working for them.

In the infographic below it uses some of the very techniques described in the article and how they work effectively. The infographic uses good spacing and makes sure the information isn’t cluttered and random, uses a consistent color scheme, includes varying types of graphs and data to change the way you look at the information, it has information you can follow and see how it progresses, and it also has the major key points bolded or standing out so you know ahead of time, before reading any information, what the text or data is going to be about.

My question would be, out of so many of these techniques and effective ways of showing data visually, according to Segel & Heer, what do they think is THE BEST or MOST EFFECTIVE technique to represent data visually?

Tufte Blog Post

In the article by Tufte he first starts out by talking about the topic of cholera and how it was finally solved. He states that there are four reasons as to how cholera was solved and solved by the proper collection of media and displaying it properly on charts, graphs, and media. This distribution of data helps to bring up awareness about the disease so that eventually it would be eradicated. The first point is placing the data in an appropriate context for assessing cause and effect. By this he means that when trying to show data, put them in the order that helps to make the data make the most sense when organized. The second point is making quantitative comparisons. By this he means that when you are out finding data or collecting it you should go a deep with the information as possible so that you can retrieve the most accurate data you can get. The third point is considering alternative explanations and contrary cases. By this he means that when you are looking at what data to use, don’t just use or look at the information that pertains to the point you are trying to make or argue. He means that you should look at all the available data that you’ve collected or received before deciding to exclude any information that doesn’t necessarily pertain to the point you’re trying to argue. The last point is assessment of possible errors in the numbers reported in graphics. By this he means that when representing written data by the use of graphs or charts it is possible to have that information become misrepresented and at that point you need to include notes about the data to make sure the readers know about the possible errors in representing data.

In the picture below it shows two different graphs with the same data, but by changing the scale you can dramatically change the way the information and data is portrayed. The first graph shows that there is a huge increase in percentage, whereas the second graph shows that it is basically flat with no real sense of increase. The scale is a huge factor in how effective the data comes out to people. When you see this huge increase in data points versus a flat increase in data point, the graph where you can actually see an increase ultimately becomes more effective.

Image result for graphs with different scales

My question is what does examining the space shuttle Challenger and what happened to it have to do with graphically interpreting data and displaying it correctly?

Tversky Blog Post

In this article, Tversky talks about graphics and how they are effective and why they should be used. One point that is made is that with graphics it provides an additional way of representing information. So not only is textual, but it is also visual too. With these two methods of representing information it allows for people to become more engaged with the information and make it easier for people to understand and follow. Not only is having information in a graphical format visually appealing; people begin understanding and recognizing graphical information as soon as five years old and from then only begin to grasp the information until they grow up and fully realize how the graphics and text all fit and work together to provide information. They did mention how graphics can be bad though. When they looked at the results of comparing graphical learning and textual learning, the results were found to be mixed. Which leans towards maybe it isn’t easiest to learn visually or textually alone, but rather together which would give a more effective result in learning.

In the two examples below I have something that is a graphic that moves and one that doesn’t. The one that moves is more effective because you just have to look at it to understand the message it’s trying to tell you rather than having to read something. Not only that, but it helps to keep me more engaged with what is happening and what is trying to be said. With the other image, being an infographic, shows information and has visual elements, I personally believe isn’t as effective because you have to read everything and you aren’t able to just watch everything. There is also nothing to help keep you hooked unless the visual elements are really just THAT good. It’s predominately text and I would rather watch than read, that’s for sure.

Image result for graphic gif    Image result for infographic

Why is the article largely about how animated graphics fail to be effective when we’ve seen so many times that they can be effective when used properly and with purpose behind them?

Quartz & Handley Blog Post

In the Quartz article it talks about how over time they see this shift from using text on Facebook to using just video. When they asked whether this is something that the Facebook company is trying to push for, more video, less text and they stated that this is just occurring naturally from people and that they are the ones heading this change. They did make a good point that with video it is so much easier to convey a lot more information in a short amount of time with video rather than text. And if you’re anything like me, I’m a visual learner rather than a textual learner. Seeing a video is easier for me to understand than if it were put into text and I had to read it. In the Handley article they argue that text is not becoming dead and that there are strengths and weaknesses to both video and text. They try to make a lot of points supporting text and that it is helpful, which it is, but I do believe that it is becoming obsolete and that most people would rather watch a video that to sit down and read story after story, text after text with nothing to help keep them engaged and interested.

In the gif below it shows being able to browse a whole selection of videos right on Facebook. I do believe that there is a shift in the use of text to a more common use of video. There is a reason that videos are becoming more popular. No one wants to sit down and just read article after article of nonstop text. The appeal is that people can play a video and watch what the text would be rather than having to read it. Also the use of video helps people to stay engaged in the video where there is nothing to text but text.

Image result for facebook video feed gif

One question that I have is that they state you can’t skim videos, but you can with text. Where/why do they state this because every video has a bar that can take you to a different time in the video so isn’t that being able to “skim” the video?

Lengler and Moere Blog Post

In this article Lengler and Moere state that visual inference and storytelling techniques are important factors to make videos and motion graphics compelling. The article focuses on three main points; the theoretical foundations of how visual rhetorical figures persuade by creating meaning, one dimension of a rhetorical classification system, and how the basic meaning making operations are best used in animated infographics.  There are five different features that help to maximize the persuasive impact of speeches and written text, which include, the audience is familiar with the metaphor target, the metaphor is novel or creates new knowledge, the base is extended by presenting the same target and the same mapping operation with a different base, it only has one rhetorical theme, and it is used at the start of the message. By the end of the article Lengler and Moere conclude that presentations, visual facilitation and animated infographics, are areas of visualization science which aren’t very effective unless the creator of the piece is a skilled designer and are educated on the principles of rhetorics.

Much like the example used in the article the picture below shows how an area of landscape has changed over time due to various circumstances. Much like in the example you are to use your own inference to distinguish the difference between the then and now and understanding the difference between the two picture can help you to facilitate what the end result might be or what the future of the landscape might end up looking like.

Image result for past and present of landscape

One question that I have is that if you aren’t skilled in the background of rhetoric does that automatically make your pieces ineffective?

Manovich Blog Post #2

In this article, Manovich begins by talking about the digital age and how it came to be with new and ever improving computer graphics software and the use they had when they first came out. He talks about how with the changing pace of technology, it has changed the way we use it. “Media Remixability is not only the ability to mix content of different media or simply their aesthetics, but their fundamentals techniques, working methods, and assumptions.” (Manovich, 9) Manovich describes how because of this “media remixability” various different forms of language and communication using media have all come down to a single point where they all meet up and begin working together to create new hybrids of technology and new ways of communicating with an audience. At a time before computerization in the 90’s, a designer’s capability became very limited and restricted in what you could do, but as the technology grew, more was able to be done, and like Manovich said, “it’s only a matter of time before all image media would be turned into digital data and illustrators, graphic designers, animators, film editors, video editors, and motion graphics designers start manipulating them via software instead of their traditional tools.” (Manovich, 14)

The below picture shows exactly what Manovich is talking about when he states that everything comes together (various aspects of technology) to help create a means of visual communication and digital media. This picture shows how a movie is created by motion tracking a real person’s facial expressions and emotions and masking them onto an animated character bring the animated character to life. This just shows all the different pieces of technology that work with each other to create one single piece of digital media. Without the hybridization of technologies used for motion graphics we may not have the same programs or software that we do today to make such amazing pieces of digital media.

I wonder if Manovich would agree or not to the question of, do you think that technology will ever get to a point where everything is done within one medium or program? Instead of multiple programs working together to create something, would he think that there is ever going to be a point to where there is just one program that does everything all in one.