Post on 27-Jan-2015
description
An Intro to Data Journalism
Computing & Communications,
The Open University
Tony Hirst@psychemediat
What is journalism?
[sensemaking]
What is data?
[a particular type of source]
What is data journalism?
http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2011/07/07/
the-inverted-pyramid-of-data-journalism/
1find stories
2tell stories
1find stories
where’s the data?
what’s the data?
“Conversations with data”
ouseful.info - A Wrangling Example With OpenRefine: Making “Oven Ready Data”
Data DistributionsIBM Many Eyes
Outliers
Trends and (anti)correlations...
Data makes most sense
when contextualised
Data only makes sense
when contextualised
[statistics]
(the art of looking at one number in the context of other numbers)
2 tell stories
BE CAREFUL…. 82 + 4 + 6 ≠ 100%
When we create a graph, we design it to tell a story.
To do this, we must first figure out what the story is.
Next, we must make sure that the story is presented simply, clearly, and accurately, and that the most important parts will demand the most attention.
When we communicate verbally, there are times when we need to raise our voices to emphasize important points.
Similarly, when we communicate graphically, we must find ways to make the important parts stand out visually.
http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/sometimes_we_must_raise_our_voices.pdf
“
When we create a graph, we design it to tell a story.
To do this, we must first figure out what the story is.
Next, we must make sure that the story is presented simply, clearly, and accurately, and that the most important parts will demand the most attention.
When we communicate verbally, there are times when we need to raise our voices to emphasize important points.
Similarly, when we communicate graphically, we must find ways to make the important parts stand out visually.
http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/sometimes_we_must_raise_our_voices.pdf
“
=importhtml("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
2014_Winter_Olympics_medal_table",
"table", 2)
[Google spreadsheets]
How else can we look at
data?
How do we ask questions
of data?
else
underspend filetype:xls site:gov.uk
Search limits
underspend filetype:xls site:gov.uk
select webPages where text like “%underspend%” and filetype=“xls”
and domain=“gov.uk”
Structured queries
SQL
Count things
How do we interpret the
answers?
start to
Look for outliers
Top 3…
…bottom 3
median
mean
Libraries
Look for similarities & differences
Look for trends
Look for patterns & structure
Data can confirm what we think we
know
Data can surprise us and force us to rethink what we think we know
SchoolOfData.org