New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

Transparency, data visualization & Obama

It has been well documented that Obama’s fast and steady rise to the steps of the White House was partly due to an uncanny mixture of classical grassroots politics and the embrace of new technology (read social media). The visual...

By Eelke Hermens on 04/02/12 1

Techniques of power in branded data visualizations

Applying Foucault's idea of panoptic modality of power to branded data visualizations.

By Andrian Georgiev on 03/29/12 Comments Off

Visualizing Food Systems

What did you have for breakfast? It’s an easy enough question. But how about, where did your breakfast come from? Using innovative data visualization tools, a growing number of developers and activists have created dynamic ways in which human...

By Joe Mier on 03/27/12 Comments Off

Show, Give and Hack: A Call for Open Data

I’ve got a confession to make. When I’m watching the news and the newscaster starts talking about the national and global economy, I find it hard to maintain interest. Of course, this is due to the fact that it...

By Bree Tahapary on 03/22/12 Comments Off

Data Journalism in the Netherlands

Tuesday the 6th of December 2011. Trending topic on Twitter is #nederlandvanboven. Non-Dutch users are confused, what is this hashtag so many people are tweeting about? It is the television documentary Nederland van Boven (the Netherlands from above), inspired...

By Annet Bos on 03/20/12 Comments Off

Visualizations of space, social data and a bit of history at the 2012 InfographICs conference

Secrets of the far-distant corners of the Universe, paths of human activities seen from above, the history of infographics and even some shots of time travels on board of a DeLorean: the fifth edition of the InfographICs conference, held...

By Jacobo Corujeira on 03/19/12 1

I Want You To Want Me

I Want You to Want Me by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar made me think: it’s a huge, goddamn lonely digital universe out there. It feels like, as researchers (and people) we’ve just launched an exploration into a new...

By Natalie Dixon on 03/10/12 Comments Off

Seminar: CBS Data Visualization – Data Journalism

– Last Friday the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) held an interactive data visualization day “Datavisualisatie in beweging” initiated by web designer Eugene Tjoa and Bas Broekhuizen. With this seminar several data visualization professionals were invited, to present their work in...

By Fenneke Mink on 02/07/12 Comments Off

Seminar: CBS Datavisualization – Bas Broekhuizen

Last Friday the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) held an interactive data visualization day “Datavisualisatie in beweging” initiated by web designer Eugene Tjoa and Bas Broekhuizen. With this seminar statistic data supplier CBS invited several data visualization professionals, to present their...

By Fenneke Mink on 02/06/12 Comments Off

Data visualizing the story of food and emotion

How do we even begin to visualize and draw connections between the intimately complex relationship that exists between food and emotion? Can we discover patterns amongst global food trends and global emotional trends? Could data visualization help us weave...

By Ekaterina Yudin on 05/11/11 5

Narrative Structures in Data Visualizations to Improve Storytelling

Interactive data visualization has emerged as a complete new field within journalism. Large editorials like The New York Times, The Guardian, the Economist, the Washington Post all have special teams dedicated to data visualizations only. However, in the recent...

By Philip Man on 05/03/11 1

Scientific Visualization: how to let the brain understand that it sees itself?

Abstract: Scientific visualizations are part of the branch of data visualization. They primarily show 3D models of natural phenomena. Scientific visualizations are under-represented compared to information visualization (the other part of data visualization). Time to take a closer look...

By Jorien De Wandeler on 04/29/11 Comments Off

Graphical Primitives versus Direct Visualization

A rectangle walks in a bar and orders a drink. An attractive circle sits on a bar stool next to the rectangle. ‘Hey Circle, want to get primitive?’ The Circle looks the rectangle slowly up and down and says:...

By Marije Rooze on 04/22/11 Comments Off

What Data Visualization Can Learn from Game Design

When reading articles and books on data visualization, the focus is often on ampiflying cognition by using external (visual) aids. In this blogpost I attempt to conduct a kind of meta-analysis on data visualization by looking beyond the content...

By Philip Man on 04/19/11 2

Decision Making 2.0 With Data Visualization?

Can visualization influence people? I mean can we prove it? This core dilemma pondered at the heart of Enrico Bertini’s latest post on FILWD was incidentally triggered by a question from an audience member at his latest talk on data visualization....

By Ekaterina Yudin on 04/18/11 5

Augmented reality: the first steps to a society of control?

Layla van Daalen, Chris Hoogeveen, Hanneke Mertens Every aspect of the world has an extra layer of information. It may not always be obvious, but these extra layers are most certainly present. Marc Tuters and Kazys Varnelis describe these...

By Chris Hoogeveen on 03/13/11 2

Twitter: what are you feeling?

What if our words had no hidden meaning? What if we didn’t play the mind games that we play in deconstructing and (over-)analyzing every sentence or word or gesture and we would have to look no further than the...

By Stefania Bercu on 10/11/10 1

The World’s Mood in a Box!!

"...A way to get a glimpse of the collective human consciousness as an extension of my own. Something that I don't have to continually check or poll, but instead, like a part of my body, it will tell...

By Laila Koubia on 10/11/10 Comments Off

INFODECODATA and Manuel Lima about the rise of the info-visualisation research field

First off, I’d first like mention that there’s an upcoming symposium as a part of the INFODECODATA exhibition on Sunday 13 June at the Graphic Design Museum Breda. There’ll be plenty of interesting speakers including Lev Manovich, Jack van Wijck and...

By Sjoerd Tuinema on 06/04/10 Comments Off

Information visualization, not only an academic practice?

The definition by Card et. al. of information visualization as “the use of computer-supported, interactive, visual representations of abstract data to amplify cognition (1999),” is the basis for many. But there are also parties involved from outside the academic...

By Sander Leegwater on 04/27/10 2

Information visualization, going public

2010 has great potential in being the year that Information Visualization (InfoVis) went public and moved from being a term only used by enthusiasts, to an interest shared by a broader audience. I am not saying this just because...

By Margarida Fonseca on 04/19/10 2