Infographics and data visualization are ubiquitous in our everyday media diet, particularly in news—in print newspapers, on television news, and online. It has been argued that infographics are changing what it means to be literate in the twenty-first century—and even that they harmonize uniquely with human cognition. In this first serious exploration of the subject, Murray Dick traces the cultural evolution of the infographic, examining its use in news—and resistance to its use—from eighteenth-century print culture to today's data journalism. He identifies six historical phases of infographics in popular culture: the proto-infographic, the classical, the improving, the commercial, the ideological, and the professional.
In The Infographic: A History of Data Graphics in News and Communications (MIT Press, 2020), Dick describes the emergence of infographic forms within a wider history of journalism, culture, and communications, focusing his analysis on the UK. He considers their use in the partisan British journalism of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century print media; their later deployment as a vehicle for reform and improvement; their mass-market debut in the twentieth century as a means of explanation (and sometimes propaganda); and their use for both ideological and professional purposes in the post–World War II marketized newspaper culture. Finally, he proposes best practices for news infographics and defends infographics and data visualization against a range of criticism. Dick offers not only a history of how the public has experienced and understood the infographic, but also an account of what data visualization can tell us about the past.
Dr Murray Dick. Senior Lecturer In Multimedia Journalism at Newcastle University
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.
Tiziano Bonini and Emiliano Trere, "Algorithms of Resistance: The Everyday Fight against Platform Power" (MIT Press, 2024)
The Scientific Attitude
Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola, "The Rule Book: The Building Blocks of Games" (MIT Press, 2024)
Diana Chapman Walsh, "The Claims of Life: A Memoir" (MIT Press, 2023)
Matthew H. Hersch, "Dark Star: A New History of the Space Shuttle" (MIT Press, 2023)
Thomas S. Mullaney, "The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age" (MIT Press, 2024)
Brandon R. Brown, "Sharing Our Science: How to Write and Speak STEM" (MIT Press, 2023)
Peter D. McDonald, "Run and Jump: The Meaning of the 2D Platformer" (MIT Press, 2024)
Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, "The Inhumans and Other Stories: A Selection of Bengali Science Fiction" (MIT Press, 2024)
Benjamin J. Pauli, "Flint Fights Back: Environmental Justice and Democracy in the Flint Water Crisis" (MIT Press, 2019)
Thomas Metzinger, "The Elephant and the Blind: The Experience of Pure Consciousness: Philosophy, Science, and 500+ Experiential Reports" (MIT Press, 2024)
Sten Grillner, "The Brain in Motion: From Microcircuits to Global Brain Function" (MIT Press, 2023)
Jacob Ward, "Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications" (MIT Press, 2024)
Richard A. Detweiler, "The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry, and Accomplishment" (MIT Press, 2021)
Marco Armiero et al., "Mussolini's Nature: An Environmental History of Italian Fascism" (MIT Press, 2022)
Lee McIntyre, "On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy" (MIT Press, 2023)
David B. Nieborg and Maxwell Foxman, "Mainstreaming and Game Journalism" (MIT Press, 2023)
Joanna Zylinska, "The Perception Machine: Our Photographic Future between the Eye and AI" (MIT Press, 2023)
Vincent Ialenti, "Deep Time Reckoning: How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now" (MIT Press, 2020)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Regenerative Skills
The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall
The No-Frills Teacher Podcast
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Mel Robbins Podcast