While telling stories with data has been part of the news practice since its earliest days, it is in the midst of a renaissance. Graphics desks which used to be deemed as “the art department,” a subfield outside the work of newsrooms, are becoming a core part of newsrooms’ operation. Those people (they often have various titles: data journalists, news artists, graphic reporters, developers, etc.) who design news graphics are expected to be full-fledged journalists and work closely with reporters and editors. The purpose of this class is to learn how to think about the visual presentation of data, how and why it works, and how to doit the right way. We will learn how to make graphs like The New York Times, Vox, Pew, and FiveThirtyEight. In the end, you can share–embed your beautiful charts in publications, blog posts, and websites.
Offered By
Visualization for Data Journalism
University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignAbout this Course
Basic Python
Skills you will gain
- Python Libraries
- Data Analysis
- Plotly
- Data Reporting
- Data Visualization (DataViz)
Basic Python
Offered by
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a world leader in research, teaching and public engagement, distinguished by the breadth of its programs, broad academic excellence, and internationally renowned faculty and alumni. Illinois serves the world by creating knowledge, preparing students for lives of impact, and finding solutions to critical societal needs.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Course Orientation
In this module, you will become familiar with the course, your classmates, and the learning environment.
Module 1: Visualization in Newsrooms
This module starts with a summary of the history and emerging trends of data visualization in journalism. You will then explore various types of charts and compare their pros and cons. By doing so, you will be able to recognize a wide variety of graphical forms and evaluate their capabilities/shortcomings as well as what situations each chart type is typically used in storytelling. We will also go through the classic reading by Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and learn how to locate and articulate errors and deception in data visualization.
Module 2: Data and Visual Perception
In this module, we will first look at some examples of successful data visualizations in journalism. We will then drill down on numbers, learning the process of transforming data into information. Next, we will explore theories in visual perception and concepts in visualization and familiarize ourselves with the visual channel ranking—a useful guideline in designing news visualizations. You will evaluate pre-attentive attributes and why they are important in visualizations. You will also have hands-on practice to learn how data wrangling helps us make informed decisions.
Module 3: Narrative Storytelling
In this module, we will learn about the frameworks and techniques that can be used to integrate visualizations into a narrative. You will examine the role messaging and interactions play in drawing readers into a story package that contains greater detail. For the hands-on exercise, you will start creating graphs in Python. You will apply design theories and concepts you previously learned to build line charts, bar charts, and scatter plots.
Module 4: Cognitive Load and Color Perception
In this final module, we will explore some related concepts of cognition and memory in visualization. You will examine the importance of using the “right” amount of color in the right place and apply Gestalt principles to de-clutter your data visualization. In the end, we will work on various exercises to create interactive maps with Python.
Reviews
- 5 stars75.80%
- 4 stars14.51%
- 3 stars3.22%
- 2 stars3.22%
- 1 star3.22%
TOP REVIEWS FROM VISUALIZATION FOR DATA JOURNALISM
I truely enjoyed the contents and teaching in this online course. It's very helpful for my projects as an intern in journalism. Thanks so much, Dr. Ng. Amazing course.
Thanks very much for great content and the instructor did a great job, and her materials were very use helpful and relevant! Great experience!
The course can be bit more interesting with some suspense and current trending scenarios
Love her way of teaching, very clear and in a very good pace. I hope she can have more classes on Data journalism.
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