MISLEADING DATA GRAPHICS IN POLITICS AND NEWS
Attila Bátorfy
ELTE Department of Communication and Media Studies
"Any chart, no matter how well designed, will mislead us if we don't pay attention to it."
Alberto Cario
manipulative graphics are also made by people who know the rules
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research shows data graphics can be more effective in persuading people
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can give the impression that decisions are based on facts and expertise
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relatively easy to establish a counter-narrative with them
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can replace long, complicated arguments
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because of the low graphicacy, they make easy to mislead people
why political communication uses data graphics?
visual rhetoric tool
why we lie with data graphics?
cognition
perception
praxis
visual rhetoric
biases
reasoning errors
logical fallacies
Gestalt-principles
"graphicacy"
bad traditions
bad conventions
bad design
graphic errors
The manipulation is done before the graphic is created
Many times the manipulation is not intentional, the graphic is not intended to mislead. The creator is simply unaware of what the rules are.
William Playfair
1759–1823
"the inventor of statistical graphics"
National Debt
Howard Gray Funkhouser
1898–1984
Communist propaganda
Right wing propaganda
Truman
Reagan
Truman
Clinton
Obama
Trump
Trump
Karim Douieb's version
Trump's misinterpretation
Alberto Cairo's explanation
Biden
FloorCharts Twitter
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
simple comparisons
simple and short trends
no context
"loud"
missing scale
missing years
y axis cut
pictograms
clues
logical fallacies
logical fallacies
logical fallacies
logical fallacies
Distorsion/Graphic manipulation
original
horizontal distorsion
vertical distorsion
Axis tricks
correct
misleading
In most of the cases we start the axis "y" at zero.
But there are cases when cutting the axis is necessary.
Axis tricks
Axis tricks
Ed Hawkins
3D pseudo perspectives
3D pseudo perspectives
bad
correct
?
?
Size
=
2x
you want to show people not area!
Source: NYT
populated area map
Source: Washington Post
area distorted by population/votes
Source: WSJ
equal area map
Anthony Hearsey
exaggeration or hyperbole?
context?
Thank you!
batorfy.attila@btk.elte.hu
Copy of The use and abuse of data graphics in politics
By Attila Bátorfy
