Misrepresenting COVID-19: Lying With Charts During the Second Golden Age of Data Design. (January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Doan, Sara
• Other Names: Frith Jordan guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Journal of business and technical communication. Volume 35:Number 1(2021)
• Page Start: 73
• Page End: 79
• Publication Date: 2021-01
• Subjects: visual rhetoric -- data visualization -- COVID-19 -- ethics -- humanizing visuals; Business communication -- Periodicals; Communication of technical information -- Periodicals; 658.45
• DOI: 10.1177/1050651920958392
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1050-6519

Abstract

In this second golden age of data design, digital affordances enable the news media to share occasionally misleading charts about COVID-19. Examining data visualizations about COVID-19 highlights three ways that charts can mislead viewers: (a) by displaying inadequate data, (b) by manipulating scales and visual distance, and (c) by omitting contextual labels needed to fully understand a chart's message. This article provides takeaways for technical communicators about including and displaying adequate data, representing numbers consistently, and humanizing COVID-19's effects.