Multimedia frisson: Great graphic renderings of news and history

The Nieman Journalism Lab has a nice round-up of some beautifully informative and often luscious work that "visualizes" news -- that is, turns news trends (and the social concerns and changes they document) into visual representations of data, like changing maps, splats of paint, or -- a favorite -- a simple needle meter.

For example:

An interview with Tim Schwartz (who has more great stuff at his site) about his indexing of various terms as used by the Times over the decades:

Tim Schwartz visualizes history (1851-2008) through word usage in The New York Times from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

This paint splatter by Jer Thorp, as described by the J-Lab blog:

Below is his latest piece, which visualizes the frequency of "socialism" (orange) and "capitalism" (green) in the Times between 1984 and 2009, sweeping around like a clock. The bursts -- for instance, of socialism in 1989 -- capture the charged events they represent.

s

More like this

Michelle Borkin is astute in recognizing the manner in which information visualization can collapse the distinction between disciplines. Borkin notes that reading visual representations of star formation and human disease are not unlike exercises as MRI and telescope data are similar in terms of "…
Sometimes I just don't get it. Whether it is climate change, evolution, or vaccination, the more literal minded among science bloggers and pundits typically blame science journalists for breakdowns in public communication. Yet as I discuss in a forthcoming article at Skeptical Inquirer magazine,…
With this post, and with pleasure, I bring the blog formerly known as Smooth Pebbles -- now Neuron Culture (mark your RSS readers!) -- back to Scienceblogs. Seventeen months ago I said farewell to this Scienceblogs home, at least for a time, because I had not found blogging a comfortable fit.…
[Bumped up to make it easier for me to update, and links placed under the fold so not to clutter the front page] Here's a collection of blog posts written during the Science Blogging Conference (more will be added over the next couple of days as people write their posts after recovering from travel…