Journalist David McCandless prefers the metaphor “data is the new soil” rather than “data is the new oil”. He justifies this by conveying data as a fertile creative medium from which visualisation, infographics and data visualisation, bloom.
The examples which the speaker provides regarding military budget and size of military are effective in demonstrating the effect of accurate information portrayal. Effective visualisation considers several factors in order to convey information accurately. For example, listing nations in order of military budget conveys one piece of information – factoring in the nations’ GDP however, demonstrates the power of that budget relative to the nation’s economy.
Screenshot [Image] (2010, Jul). Screenshot 17 Oct, 2017, from https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization#t-697356
Lecture Source:
David McCandless. (2010). The beauty of data journalism [Video]. TED. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization#t-1070196https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyjBJzigm0w
