Data Storytelling

With the rising demand for data skills across industries and disciplines, and the prevalence of data in all aspects and levels of our lives, it is critical to find new, more effective ways to develop students’ data literacies. Stories can be an accessible way for students to personally connect to, and think critically about, data and its implications. But how can data storytelling be effectively implemented into classroom settings, in which instruction is often constrained to focus narrowly on quantitative skills? This interactive poster session showcases eight innovations in data storytelling in the classroom. Together, the contributions consider the various facets and functions of stories for supporting data literacies in contexts that span K-12 to university. By seeking to define the value and roles of storytelling in data literacy learning, this session will inform ways to create more effective and engaging data literacy instruction.

"In un foglio di Excel di oltre 92000 righe di dati (il documento sull’Afghanistan fornito da WikiLeaks al Guardian aveva esattamente queste dimensioni) non si tratta di scovare una o più righe degne di essere raccontate, ma di capire come e cosa raccontano i dati nel loro insieme. È la lettura trasversale, la selezione, la messa in relazione di questi dati che, piuttosto, fa da base a quello che nel giornalismo va sempre più di moda chiamare data storytelling. In questo senso, il giornalismo dei dati racconta i dati e allo stesso tempo non li racconta: racconta attraverso i dati, ovvero se ne serve per costruire un racconto che è qualcosa di più complesso della semplice restituzione dei dati."

The second wave of Internet development (2000-2015) that enabled the app economy and mobile revolution is moving into the third wave of exponential connectivity era (2016- ) of Internet of Things, in which big data and algorithmic logic are taking the lead to help us deal with the uncertainty and our disoriented or “tribal” relationship to “truth seeking”.
Major legacy media such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Guardian and innovative journalism scaling up startups such as Quartz, Vox, ProPublica and BuzzFeed are investing in data-first, story-centric, computational journalism approaches, in search of providing more accuracy, more transparency and deeper engagement with the communities or audiences they aim to serve. Algorithms and automation are trusted to manage and correlate data, hard science facts and information, to provide context, understanding, to tell stories that matter. All embedded in big data.
In this paper we present our work in progress of an ethnographic qualitative research, taking as case studies two data-led newsrooms in the US, where there is a very strong and influential data journalism community of scholars and media professionals.
We aim to shed a close-up light on how the organizational context of data journalism production impacts the evolution of two data-led newsrooms, taking the cases of one leading legacy organization (MarketWatch) and one digital-native, data-led by design organization (Quartz), focusing on their data- driven news work-flows, collaborations and challenges between journalists and data editors to produce data storytelling, and possible newsroom redesigns to mirror new data-led priorities and role dynamics.
We conclude with presenting two different newsroom models and work-flows, one data- “centric” and one data-“remote” model followed by some suggestions for future research and some thoughts on the new challenges ahead in a rich interconnected data-immersed society and humanity.

Data journalism is a well established story-telling method across different news media in the United States. Analysis of this landscape (together with three detailed case studies) allows us to determine elements of best practice, Damian Radcliffe and his students at the University of Oregon argue.

Book chapter, ‘Data Journalism in the USA’ in Data Journalism: Past, Present and Future Paperback  by John Mair (Editor),‎ Richard Lance Keeble (Editor),‎ Megan Lucero (Editor): https://www.amazon.com/Data-Journalism-Past-Present-Future/dp/1845497147

Imagine booking in to your Las Vegas hotel. You make your way to your room and begin to unpack but – horror! You forgot to bring your favourite going-outshoes. You bought them on the internet so you jump online to see if you can get another pair delivered to the hotel. But they’re no longer on the site. Worried, you call the retailer’s concierge service. Unfortunately they don’t stock the shoes any longer and, dejected, you assume that’s the end of the story. It’s not. The company’s headquarters are just outside Las Vegas. The team immediately tracks down a pair of the shoes at a rival store in a local mall. They then drive downtown, purchase the shoes and hand-deliver them to your hotel, without charging a penny. Imagine if that kind of service existed. It does. This tale about one woman’s service from Zappos has been making the rounds since 2011. Zappos is still held up today as a company that treats its customers right. They’ve sent flowers to a sick customer and rescued a best man whose wedding shoes got lost in the mail. In these moments of connection, Zappos gained lifelong customers and – crucially – contributed to a narrative about the company. A narrative that fits their vision of providing the best customer service on the planet.

Working with data is an increasingly powerful way of making knowledge claims about the world, however there is a growing gap between those who can work effectively with data and those who cannot. Because it is state and corporate actors who possess the resources to collect, store and analyze data, individuals (as citizens, as community members, as professionals) are more likely to be the subjects of data than to use data for civic purposes. There is a strong case to be made for cultivating data literacy for people in non-technical fields as one means of bridging that gap. Literacy, following the model of popular education proposed by Paulo Freire, requires not only the acquisition of technical skills but also the emancipation achieved through the literacy process. This essay proposes the term creative data literacy to recognize that non-technical learners may need alternate pathways towards data than those coming from technical fields. Here I offer five tactics to cultivate creative data literacy for empowerment. They are grounded in my experience as a data literacy researcher, educator and software developer. Each tactic is explained and introduced with examples. I assert that working towards creative data literacy is not only the work of educators but also data creators, data publishers, tool developers, tool and visualization designers, tutorial authors, government, community organizers and artists.

Storytelling is shown as an effective approach to humanize information perception. However, its potential to build a biased view of the information contents is often neglected. Moreover, narrative understanding and emotion may interfere with data visualization comprehension. In this research, we evaluated how users perceived
the information in two different configurations: One with a report with graphs and narrative side notes texts, and the second with a redesigned fully annotated content.
The test compared the two groups in both qualitative and quantitative methods. The quantitative results were obtained by a survey and statistically analyzed with a T-Test. This indicated that the condescending storytelling approach augmented the
perception of the effect signaled by the presented narrative. Also, the qualitative results collected afterward by interview and focus group have shown that, as the readers of narrative models perceived a higher intensity of the effect, they have
also expected an even higher result from the selected data. The final analysis of the experiment helped to indicate that ordering, highlights, and semantics have a strong role in how the narrative influences the perception of the reader.

Hablamos con John Postill, profesor titular de Comunicación en
RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia), sobre temas presentes en su nuevo
libro: “The Rise of Nerd Politics” (El surgimiento de la Política Nerd).
Postill nos explica qué es la política nerd, cómo las prácticas creativas de la cultura de la remezcla y la cultura libre surgen y se expanden en movimientos sociales a través de los imaginarios populares. La entrevista finaliza con un tema muy actual que en inglés se llama “data storytelling”, los relatos que están detrás de los datos masivos y que al convertirse en historias llevan cuestiones técnicas a otros públicos, a persona comunes.

Transmedia storytelling is defined as a process where integral elements of fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels to create a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. This process and its narrative models have had an increasing influence on the academic world in addressing both theoretical and practical dimensions of transmedia storytelling. The Handbook of Research on Transmedia Storytelling and Narrative Strategies is a critical scholarly resource that explores the connections between consumers of media content and information parts that come from multimedia platforms, as well as the concepts of narration and narrative styles. Featuring coverage on a wide range of topics such as augmented reality, digital society, and marketing strategies, this book explores narration as a method of relating to consumers. This book is ideal for advertising professionals, creative directors, academicians, scriptwriters, researchers, and upper-level graduate students seeking current research on narrative marketing strategies.

Hablamos con John Postill, profesor titular de Comunicación en RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia), sobre temas presentes en su nuevo libro: “The Rise of Nerd Politics” (El surgimiento de la Política Nerd). Postill nos explica qué es la política nerd, cómo las prácticas creativas de la cultura de la remezcla y la cultura libre surgen y se expanden en movimientos sociales a través de los imaginarios populares. La entrevista finaliza con un tema muy actual que en inglés se llama “data storytelling”, los relatos que están detrás de los datos masivos y que al convertirse en historias llevan cuestiones técnicas a otros públicos, a persona comunes.

Il presente contributo chiarisce come l'alfabetizzazione critica ai dati non sia solo uno strumento per affrontare le sfide della datificazione, ma, combinata ad un approccio media educativo, possa diventare una strategia di contenimento dell’“infodemia” di disinformazione che caratterizza il tempo presente. L'analisi critica dei media, insieme alla produzione creativa, è una strategia didattica tipica della media education e può contribuire ad aumentare la comprensione delle teorie del complotto che circolano in rete. Dopo aver mostrato come le teorie del complotto siano interpretabili come culture e pratiche mediali ed aver illustrato la specificità dell'approccio media educativo per affrontarle, si espone il ruolo che la data literacy può rivestire per sviluppare la capacità di agire in modo significativo e proattivo nella società datificata. Infine, un esempio di analisi critica di un data storytelling, appartenente ad una narrazione complottista, conclude la riflessione. Nelle conclusioni si delinea come tale approccio media educativo applicato ai dati possa contribuire a sviluppare competenze civiche per affrontare le distorsioni delle comunicazioni complottiste.

Data storytelling is rapidly gaining prominence as a characteristic activity of digital journalism, with significant adoption by small and large media houses. In the past few years, there has been an increased attention on the qualitative aspects of data stories; specifically on how such qualitative factors impact journalism and how data journalism could be improved. At the same time, there is a growing stock of knowledge on exemplars of exceptional and good data storytelling from a journalistic viewpoint. For instance, the Global Editors Network (GEN), through its Data Journalism Award, have been identifying exceptional data journalism practices since 2012.
While a few studies in the past have examined single aspects of data storytelling, such as narratives, visualisation or analysis (Segel and Heer 2010; Lee et al. 2015; Alexander and Vetere 2011, Stikeleather 2013), we believe there is a lack of systematic research around the characteristics of good data stories, as well as the technologies and tools employed in such stories.
A literature review in the Data Journalism domain by Julian Ausserhofer et al. (2016) shows that there are few studies in this area focusing on theory or methodology. We are yet to see a systematic effort to gain better insights into the characterises of good data stories, how such stories are created, and what skills are required in creating such stories.
This paper aims to address this gap in systematic research and practice by studying the winners in the Global Editors Network’s annual Data Journalism Awards, and providing a framework to characterise successful data storytelling. Through analysing the winning stories, this paper provides a systematic insight into the combination of tools and techniques which enable excellence in data journalism.