Stories in the data: An analysis of climate change visualisations in online news

Abstract

This thesis explores the way journalists are using and adapting visualisations in climate change news, in order to investigate the meaning-making potential of an emerging form of digital journalism where methods of information visualisation are used to translate specialist knowledge and often complex, multivariate datasetsinto images that are more easily understood by, and of social value to, the general public. Applying a dual methodological framework of heuristic evaluation and social semiotic analysis, this thesis presents a novel method of exploring both the abstraction and translation of climate change data into multimodal visual displays of quantitative information. By conducting a content and textual analyses of 547 climate change visualisation stories collected in the year of 2015 from seven Western generalist news publications that have made a commitment to excellence in data journalism, this thesis found that despite the steady rise in the popularity of data journalism, journalists are not widely adopting scientific methods of data analysis and representation. Over half of the visualisations examined were sourced from science communicators and government bodies, reinforcing traditional news power relations. Further, the textual analyses found that visualisations operate discursively. Rather than present data in systemised, interactive ways, journalists are retaining a large degree of narrative control over the way meaning is construed with and through the use of visualisations. These stories thus illustrate a continuation of, rather than a digital break with, traditional journalism. Such findings pose a challenge to the normative assumptions that data journalism adds value to news by improving its openness, transparency, accountability, and accuracy.