Abstract
The myth of transparency and truthfulness is the foundation for contemporary theories of information design. Avoiding distortion and ambiguity is the moral imperative of an upstanding data visualizer. Sometimes, though, data that is collected is not accurate enough and the sources use indirect indicators to approach a phenomenon: what to do then, if the need to graphically represent a phenomenon is urgent and necessary? Should the designer wait to have the exact data, or should he indicate a trend, expressing the hypothetical status of his statement? Can data visualization be designed to express doubt rather than to inform about facts?
This essay will deal with the forms of expression of uncertainty in infographics. It will consider the designer as both an observer and a translator, whose position of neutrality is only one of the possible realms of discourse. In general, it will focus on the forms of visual expression of a self-criticizing mood in quantitative research today and it will explore the ways in which data that is not meaningful in statistical terms can become meaningful in semiotic terms.
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© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction to Meaningful data/Données signifiantes
- A data-driven computational semiotics: The semantic vector space of Magritte’s artworks
- New approaches to plastic language: Prolegomena to a computer-aided approach to pictorial semiotics
- Mesures et savoirs : Quelles méthodes pour l’histoire culturelle à l’heure du big data ?
- Visual semiotics and automatic analysis of images from the Cultural Analytics Lab: How can quantitative and qualitative analysis be combined?
- Uncertain infographics: Expressing doubt in data visualization
- Quelques expériences pour développer l’expression de sens en cartographie thématique
- Raw data or hypersymbols? Meaning-making with digital data, between discursive processes and machinic procedures
- Differential heterogenesis and the emergence of semiotic function
- Regular Articles
- Semiotic alignment: Towards a dialogical model of interspecific communication
- Modal functioning of rhetorical resources in selected multimodal cartoons
- The mission of the Chinese puzzle: From a quest for order to seeking entertainment
- Memes, genes, and signs: Semiotics in the conceptual interface of evolutionary biology and memetics
- Formalisation sémiotique de la traduction : Le modèle transformationnel d’Alexandre Ljudskanov
- Glossopoesis in Thomas More’s Utopia: Beyond a representation of foreignness
- Playing peripatos: Creativity and abductive inference in religion, art and war
- Borders and translation: Revisiting Juri Lotman’s semiosphere
- Peirce’s philosophy of communication and language communication
- Mythic symbolic type, utopia, and body without organs
- The contribution of narrative semiotics of experiential imaginary to the ideation of new digital customer experiences
- Transference of brand personality in brand name translation: A case study on the Chinese-English translation of men’s clothing brands
- Intertextuality as a strategy of glocalization: A comparative study of Nike’s and Adidas’s 2008 advertising campaigns in China
- The semiotic web of the research proposal
- Sic vita est: Visual representation in painting of the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction to Meaningful data/Données signifiantes
- A data-driven computational semiotics: The semantic vector space of Magritte’s artworks
- New approaches to plastic language: Prolegomena to a computer-aided approach to pictorial semiotics
- Mesures et savoirs : Quelles méthodes pour l’histoire culturelle à l’heure du big data ?
- Visual semiotics and automatic analysis of images from the Cultural Analytics Lab: How can quantitative and qualitative analysis be combined?
- Uncertain infographics: Expressing doubt in data visualization
- Quelques expériences pour développer l’expression de sens en cartographie thématique
- Raw data or hypersymbols? Meaning-making with digital data, between discursive processes and machinic procedures
- Differential heterogenesis and the emergence of semiotic function
- Regular Articles
- Semiotic alignment: Towards a dialogical model of interspecific communication
- Modal functioning of rhetorical resources in selected multimodal cartoons
- The mission of the Chinese puzzle: From a quest for order to seeking entertainment
- Memes, genes, and signs: Semiotics in the conceptual interface of evolutionary biology and memetics
- Formalisation sémiotique de la traduction : Le modèle transformationnel d’Alexandre Ljudskanov
- Glossopoesis in Thomas More’s Utopia: Beyond a representation of foreignness
- Playing peripatos: Creativity and abductive inference in religion, art and war
- Borders and translation: Revisiting Juri Lotman’s semiosphere
- Peirce’s philosophy of communication and language communication
- Mythic symbolic type, utopia, and body without organs
- The contribution of narrative semiotics of experiential imaginary to the ideation of new digital customer experiences
- Transference of brand personality in brand name translation: A case study on the Chinese-English translation of men’s clothing brands
- Intertextuality as a strategy of glocalization: A comparative study of Nike’s and Adidas’s 2008 advertising campaigns in China
- The semiotic web of the research proposal
- Sic vita est: Visual representation in painting of the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY