Instructions for Students
Chapter 3 of Data Feminism is the chapter that deals with data visualization. First, read the chapter. Then, take a look at this visualization that National Geographic published in 2010. Write a 150-250 word analysis that uses this example visualization to either support or critique one of the key claims in Chapter 3 of Data Feminism. We’ll be following up on these analyses in class.
Note to Instructors
In its graphic design and information design, Oliver Uberti’s “Fish Pharm” visualization has both strengths and weaknesses, and this makes it a good pairing with Chapter 3 of Data Feminism. Questions for discussion might include:
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Data Feminism calls for data designers to “elevate emotion” in their visualizations. Do you think “Fish Pharm” does a good job of that? Why or why not?
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Data Feminism also calls for data designers to disclose their subject positions. Does “Fish Pharm” do a good job of that? Why or why not?
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Does “Fish Pharm” visceralize the nature of pharmaceuticals in water systems? If so, how?
Note that “Fish Pharm’s” information design can be strongly critiqued.
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It is a type of area chart, similar to a pie chart but in a different shape, so its entire purpose is to show the proportion of parts in relation to a whole. But the fine print at lower left clarifies that this visualization only represents four pharmaceutical types found during one study of Chicago’s North Shore Channel. So what does the “whole fish” represent? It can’t be the whole set of pharmaceuticals in the water, and it’s clearly not the whole water content. It’s just an arbitrary “whole” created from four arbitrary pharmaceuticals. The proportions of these four drugs to one another is nearly meaningless. What we really care about is their occurrence in proportion to the threat they pose, but the fine print at lower right makes clear that nobody yet knows that – so the visualization might end up stoking fear without having the data to back it up. Some people might find that laudable, some might not.
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Norfluoxetine, which makes up 46% of the fish, is represented by three different types of pills: the green capsules, the green-and-yellow capsules, and the white tablets. Carbamazepine is represented by two different types of pills far apart, in the eye and the tail. The splitting of the four different drugs into multiple colors and areas makes the fish more visually striking, but also makes the data visualization far more difficult to understand.
Ultimately, “Fish Pharm” packs striking aesthetics and a rhetorical gut punch into a difficult-to-parse visualization without much usable information.