Imagining Big Data: Illustrations of Big Data in U.S. News Articles 2010-2016

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session III
  In Interactive Poster Session: Visual Communication Studies Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Imagining big data’ brings up a palette of concerns about their technological intricacies, political significance, commercial value, and cultural impact. Given its broad and controversial reception, this ambiguous notion inspires different cultural visions. Our paper looks at this emerging arena of public sensemaking. It considers the spectrum of press illustrations that are employed to illustrate what big data are and what their consequences could be. Establishing powerful imagery is both a key journalistic task and a tremendous challenge, undertaken to provide palpable form to an abstract phenomenon and to turn big data into an issue. We collected all images from big-data-related articles published in the online editions of two U.S. daily newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, for our analysis. As the first examination of the visual dimension of big data to date, our exploratory study suggests that big data are predominantly discussed with reference to their areas of application and the people involved in data analytics, often in connection with graphical data visualizations.

Authors

• Christian Pentzold, University of Bremen

• Cornelia Brantner, IWAF - Institut für Wissenskommunikation und angewandte Forschung

• Lena Fölsche, University of Bremen