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

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

Visualizing Scientific Research Collaboration: A Review of the Beauchesne-Map

Introduction In recent years there has been an increase in interest for international scientific collaboration (Luukkonen, 1993, Ponds, 2008), but the phenomenon is anything but recent: the first signs of it where seen in the nineteenth century (Luukkonen, 1993:...

By Sander Jansma on 04/14/11 2

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

Cultural Bias in Data Visualization

Data visualizations have to deal with the hard task of presenting data in such a way that the intention of the visualization becomes clear to the audience. Using literature dealing with the translation of data into design and the...

By Jorrit Schaap on 03/28/12 2

Information Visualization and Conflict

The visualization of information has long been a tool for generals and historians alike to go over military strategy and to materialize the concomitants of battle. As military operations continue within an increasingly data-rich environment, we must ask if...

By Thomas Wielemaker on 05/25/10 2

What’s that on the map? Problems with geo-visualization

The last couple of weeks, my data-visualization team and I, have been working on our Europeana project. Europeana is a big heritage-digitization project funded by the European Union. Their goal is to digitize all of Europe’s heritage objects and...

By Joris Pekel on 04/21/11 2

(Accelerated) World at Work

The Accelerated Living was a theme of the 20th edition of the Impakt Festival (Utrecht 2009) that was focused on changing notions of time. It explored the ways in which we experience time and speed, and the ways in...

By Jan Bajec on 11/02/09 2

Twitter Research Supported by Info Visualisation

Everyday users of Twitter users provide the world with us with of tweets on topics differing from what they ate, how they feel to what music they listen to. This is a great source for researchers who want to...

By Jidi Guo on 10/07/10 1

What to do with all that big data?

“Big data will be bigger in 2013” according to the article on the website of Telegraph written on the 26th of December 2012. Even though ‘big data’ was ‘big’ in 2012, they predict that it will be bigger in...

By Jaimy Quadekker on 03/07/13 1

The Great Global Warming Swindle?

So there’s a documentary by the British Channel Four which argues that human/CO2 caused Global Warming is a pile of steaming bollocks (smells better than excrement). It can grow to become a kind of counter-Inconvenient Truth, and contribute to...

By Pepijn Uitterhoeve on 05/09/07 1

Visualizing Academic Interest

The internet has been heralded and praised for bringing democracy. It is stated since the advent of the internet that knowledge is no longer bound to limitations, as it goes freely over the web disseminating to all possible directions....

By Xander Stolwijk on 04/25/11 1

Fiona Raby Lecture Report: Designs for fragile personalities in anxious times

Room F201C of the University of Amsterdam’s Oudemanhuispoort building for an hour was the domain of Fiona Raby. She presented her ideas on design, which has close links to the design practice of Anthony Dunne, together they’re also known...

By Twan Eikelenboom on 05/11/07 1

Analyzing Information Visualization Projects on the Topic of Economic Inequality

The current paper focuses on information visualization projects related to the topic of economic inequality which can, in this particular case, be more specifically categorized under “speculative visualization” as defined by the authors Tanyoung Kim and Carl DiSalvo in...

By Ana Crisostomo on 05/04/13 1

Visualizing the ‘invisible space’

We live in a constant struggle to steer through the big and varied torrent of data which is unleashed everyday. And “data” can cover many different things. By following the Concise Lexicon for the Digital Commons created in 2001...

By Susana Zaragoza on 04/20/10 1

Visualizing Our Global Mood 140 Characters at a Time

“We need a new way to convey information, a method which is simple to teach and to learn, and at the same time comprehensive and exact. What I might call ‘consistent visualization’ is such a way.“ These are the...

By Robert Silvis on 03/13/13 1

INFORMATION VISUALISATION, SHARING THE STORY

No one knows everything, but everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity While the notion of collective intelligence –as coined by Pierre Lévy- has already been extensively discussed in regards to the collective phenomenon of Wikipedia, the current rise...

By Heleen Kerkman on 04/20/10 1

Data visualizations in popular Dutch media

EVERY TWO DAYS WE CREATE as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt. That is something like five exabytes of data: 5.000.000.000.000.000.000 bytes. It is no surprise...

By M. van Helvert on 04/17/14 1

Information Visualization and the Public Sphere

Democratization of Data Open Data is a practice (and philosophy) of making data freely available to everyone. Advocates of Open Data argue that restrictions, licenses, copyright, patents, or other mechanisms of control are against the communal good and that...

By Jan Bajec on 05/19/10 1

Data visualizations: a global matter

Two levels of information processing Our world is saturated with information. Images, objects, texts, numbers, audio, moving visuals, and everything in between. There’s a reason some call the present the Information Age and invent terms like informatization. All...

By Stijnie Thuijs on 03/26/12 1

Performative practices of mapping

“Perhaps one of the most important characteristics of . . . map has multiple entryways as opposed to the tracing, which always goes back “to the same.” The map has to do with performance”. (Deleuze...

By Radmila Radojevic on 05/19/10 1

Visualising music: the problems with genre classification

Want to listen to new music but sick of staring at your old MP3 collection? Streaming applications like Spotify, Last.fm and Pandora (US only) recommend related artists. Sites like The Hype Machine and Elbows aggregate music blogs for instant...

By Janice Wong on 04/26/11 1

Tangible Data Visualizations

We live in a world of three dimensions (alright 4, and a spattering of more depending on which school of quantum theory you adhere to). However, when it comes to visualizing data, the results are surprisingly 2-dimensional, and mostly...

By Philip Anderson on 04/22/14 1

How to make beautiful music (audibly & visually) without being a musician

Composing and representing music visually has traditionally been through music notation. Using a 5 lined “staff” or “stave” as a framework, black circles with lines are drawn to represent pitch and length of notes with other markings such as...

By Janice Wong on 05/10/11 1

Information Visualization & Charting The Beatles

Since I am a huge Beatles fan and I’m currently enrolled in the Information Visualization course I want to give this project some attention; Charting The Beatles, lead by graphic designer Michael Deal. This projects attempts visual analysis of...

By Maarten Hoogvliet on 05/24/10 1