Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Data storytelling'

Data is more abundant than ever, yet its utility is diminished by a lack of understanding and difficulty in communicating insights. This thesis seeks to test the effectiveness of data-driven storytelling as a means to solve this disconnect. Research conducted includes reading previous literature on the subject, interviewing journalists and data practitioners as well as learning to use various software tools. This research focuses on communicating engaging stories by finding, cleaning, analyzing and visualizing data using R, Python, Excel, Tableau, Carto and other software tools. The result is a series of data-driven stories published in the Daily Wildcat on a variety of subjects including campus life, politics, and sports. The conclusion of the thesis finds that data-driven storytelling is an effective medium for communicating data and capitalizing on its potential utility. This conclusion is drawn from the fact that humans intuitively understand narrative and data insights parsed out in this familiar form are more easily understood than data presented in an abstract manner.

Rollspel kan ske i många olika former, och rollspelandet online erbjuder spelare en  mängd olika möjligheter för interakton och socialt samspel. Hur går rollspelet tll och  hur påverkar det spelarna som deltar? Den här studien tar upp hur rollspel i et  MMORPG kan gå tll, hur det kan användas i skapande utanför spelets gränser samt  hur de deltagande ser på sin egen medverkan i skapandet av en berätelse genom  rollspel. Undersökningen har gåt ut på at under en td delta i rollspel för at sedan  använda de intryck och händelser som sket inom spelets ramar för at skriva en text.  Därefer har rollspelare intervjuats angående en rad olika områden som berör  rollspel och hur de ser på det. Slutligen så sammanfatas spelarnas egna upplevelser  och de slutsatser som kan dras utfrån dessa kan användas som en grund inför  fortsata studier angående rollspel online.

La mayoría de las organizaciones toman decisiones a diario de manera intuitiva, pero solo el uso de los datos, visualización y data storytelling, les asegura una ventaja competitiva, ya que, al comprender el mensaje oculto de los datos, les genera valor agregado a las organizaciones. Por ello, el propósito de la investigación es contrastar las diversas posturas y valoración de los autores para responder a la interrogante central de este estudio: ¿cuáles son las principales posturas sobre el uso de la visualización de datos y el data storytelling en la toma de decisiones en las organizaciones? El método de investigación fue del tipo cualitativo que identificó los principales enfoques de distintos autores. El estudio se desprende de una nueva revolución industrial a la que están sometidos los tomadores de decisiones: la revolución digital, y quiénes no tengan la capacidad de decidir de forma ágil y efectiva perecerán; es decir, no importa cuán increíble sea su análisis o valiosa sea su información, no generará ningún cambio en las partes interesadas sino logran comprender lo que han hecho. Por ello, la visualización de datos y el data storytelling hace la gran diferencia en la toma de decisiones y accionar de forma oportuna.
Most organizations make daily decisions intuitively, but only the use of data, visualization and data storytelling, ensures them a competitive advantage, since, by understanding the hidden message of the data, it generates added value to the organizations. Therefore, the purpose of the research is to contrast the various positions and assessment of the authors to answer the central question of this study: what are the main positions on the use of data visualization and data storytelling in decision making in organizations? The research method is of the qualitative type that identified the main approaches of different authors. The study shows that decision makers are facing a new industrial revolution: the digital one, and those who do not have the ability to decide in an agile and effective way will perish; that is, no matter how incredible their analysis is or how valuable their information is, it does not generate any change in the stakeholders if they do not manage to understand what they have done. Therefore, data visualization and data storytelling make a big difference in making decisions and action in a timely manner.
Trabajo de Suficiencia Profesional

Exploratory data analysis aims to study datasets through the use of iterative, investigative, and visual analytic algorithms. Due to the difficulty in managing and accessing the growing volume of unstructured data, exploratory analysis of datasets has become harder than ever and an interest to data mining researchers. In this dissertation, we study new algorithms for exploratory analysis of data collections using clusters and stories. Clustering brings together similar entities whereas stories connect dissimilar objects. The former helps organize datasets into regions of interest, and the latter explores latent information by connecting the dots between disjoint instances. This dissertation specifically focuses on five different research aspects to demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of clusters and stories as exploratory data analysis tools. In the area of clustering, we investigate whether clustering algorithms can be automatically "alternatized" and how they can be guided to obtain alternative results using flexible constraints as "scatter-gather" operations. We demonstrate the application of these ideas in many application domains, including studying the bat biosonar system and designing sustainable products. In the area of storytelling, we develop algorithms that can generate stories using distance, clique, and syntactic constraints. We explore the use of storytelling for studying document collections in the biomedical literature and intelligence analysis domain.
Ph. D.

Il seguente elaborato tratta i temi della gamification e dello storytelling e analizza attraverso casi di studio l'attuale stato dell'arte in materia, ponendo l'accento su ciò che riguarda il mondo digitale e l'evoluzione di tali pratiche. Saranno spiegati il significato di queste tecniche, la loro trasformazione nel tempo e i principi psicologici che ne stanno alla base (concentrandosi sugli aspetti di Human Computer Interaction e psicologia comportamentale). Dopodiché saranno indicati e visti in dettaglio i principali meccanismi per attuare con successo strategie di gamification e storytelling, parlando nel primo caso di due dei framework più famosi (MDA e Octalysis) e nel secondo delle diverse categorie di storytelling, analizzandone i diversi scopi, tra cui quelli economici, ma anche educativi e sociali. Infine, saranno approfonditi alcuni casi di studio per ognuno dei temi trattati in precedenza, analizzati anche secondo i framework sopra citati e sottolineando i vantaggi derivati da una buona applicazione di gamification e storytelling.

The term transmedia storytelling describes an interactive narrative that exists in multiple platforms. This phenomenon allows active audience participation as a part of the narrative creation process. Part of the prior research on transmedia focuses on how to create a transmedia narrative. However there is a dearth of literature examining the merit that transmedia narratives create in Marketing. In order to answer the research question “How can transmedia storytelling be used to create value in marketing?” we conducted a multiple case study research in which we examined four marketing campaigns to reveal the transmedia elements in them. Using the approach of qualitative content analysis we applied a structured method according which we collected and ­­analysed the data from these campaigns. Our findings suggest that creating audience participation through transmedia storytelling in marketing campaigns for movies, products and services can be beneficial. By using different media, platforms and stimulating user participation, concepts such as brand extension and brand awareness are introduced to the audience with an alternative way. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate several ways of how transmedia can be a valuable asset to a marketing campaign through storytelling.

The aim of this compilation thesis is to understand how technology for visual storytelling can be shaped and used in relation to social science education in primary school, but also how social dimensions, technical and other matters create emerging learning conditions in such an educational setting. The visual storytelling technology introduced and used in the study is ‘the Statistics eXplorer platform, a geovisual analytics. The choice of theoretical perspectives to inform and guide the study is a socio-cultural view of human action, but also actor network theory is used to take account also of activities of technology and other matters. The study builds on three empirical materials that generate data from 16 social science teachers, and 126 students from five social science classrooms, in three Swedish primary schools. It contains field notes from the introduction of the technology; focusgroup interviews with teachers; think-aloud interviews with students and two kinds of video recordings from the classrooms (with an ordinary video camera and with software that capture activities at the computer screen, students’ activities and the audio as well). The analysis shows that the visual storytelling technology is shaped in relevant ways for social science teachers. The analysis also illustrates that the visual educational material are usable for primary school students in their social science education. They illustrate further how teachers, students, technology, information, tasks, data types, etc. together and in in close relation create highly complex learning conditions. The technology can therefore be seen as appropriate for the educational practice, but the complexity together with students’ apprehension of how to announce knowledge distribute severe problem spaces in the learning activities. The technology can therefore be assumed as a catalyst for educational change, but to achieve its potentials, reflections on didactic design and knowledge formation is requested to support the quality of students’ knowledge in relation to visual analysis.
Syftet i denna avhandling är, att förstå hur teknik för visual storytelling kan vara utformad och användas i relation till samhällsorienterande undervisning i grundskolan (årskurs 4 – 6), men också hur sociala dimensioner, tekniska och andra faktorer skapar villkor för lärande i ett sådant undervisningssammanhang. I studien introduceras datavisualiseringsteknik för visual storytelling: ‘the Statistics eXplorer platform’, ett geovisual analytics. Den teoretiska referensramen har sin grund i ett social konstruktionistiskt synsätt Ett socio-kulturellt perspektiv används för att analysera social aktivitet, men även aktörnätverks teori används för att analysera både sociala och materiella aktörer. Avhandlingen bygger på tre empiriska material som genereras med hjälp av 16 lärare i samhällsorienterande ämnen, och 126 elever tillhörande fem olika klassrum i tre olika svenska grundskolor. Materialet innehåller: fältanteckningar ifrån introduktion av tekniken, fokusgrupps-intervjuer med lärare, ‘tänka högt’-intervjuer med elever och två sorters videoinspelningar ifrån klassrum (dels med vanlig videokamera och dels med mjukvara som spelar in aktiviteter på datorskärmen och elevernas aktiviteter vid datorn, liksom ljudet). Analysen visar hur lärare, elever, teknik, information, uppgifter, data-typer, etc. tillsammans, i nära samarbete i de studerade klassrummen, skapar mycket komplexa villkor för lärande. De läraktiviteter som uppstår i klassrummen där teknik för visuell analys inkluderas, erbjuder elever support att: hantera stora datamängder, bli delaktiga i olika läraktiviteter och uppnå olika utbildningsmål, men även andra sorters elevrelaterade mål. Därför kan tekniken sägas vara relevant för denna sorts undervisning. Vidare visar analysen hur komplexiteten tillsammans med elevernas uppfattningar av hur kunskap skall visas, skapar påtagliga ‘problem spaces’ i läraktiviteterna. Lärandevillkoren kan därför förstås som en klassrumspraktik som inte fullt ut överensstämmer med den introducerade teknikens erbjudanden för visuell analys. Därför efterfrågas en förändrad syn på didaktisk design och elevers kunskapsformering, vilket blir betydelsefullt för kunskapens kvalitet i förhållande till visuell analys.

Technical advancements allow for embodied virtual agents to not only be increasingly human-like, but also to behave and look like particular individuals. As biases towards self-similarity have been found in human-human studies, it is of interest to explore to what extent this applies to virtual characters (VCs). This work set out to extend on previous research that has investigated the effects of facial self-similarity in VCs, and explore it in the context of empathic emotion. For this aim, a method for creating facially similar virtual characters was developed and a user study conducted where 13 participants were told autobiographical stories by a virtual character that either did or did not resemble them facially and/or in gender category. The participants' first impressions and emotional responses were measured. The results showed that even though similarity was not explicitly perceived, a bias might exist towards more positive impressions of self-similar characters, especially in terms of gender category. Regarding the emotional responses, the results did not allow for discovering any difference between conditions but pointed to some interesting differences in comparison to what was hypothesized. The immense ways in which the appearances of virtual characters can be altered provides possibilities to influence the interaction with them. However, although biases might exist on a general level, it is difficult to predict the human responses in individual cases. Virtual characters might make possible a more human-like interaction with technology, however, it might also mean that our reactions to them are influenced by more parameters and our relations to them become even more like those with other humans: complex.
Den tekniska utvecklingen möjliggör numera att virtuella agenter kan göras inte bara människolika, utan även lika specifika individer i hur de beter sig och ser ut. Då tidigare studier påvisat att människor ofta föredrar personer som i någon mån liknar dem själva, är det intressant att utforska i vilken utsträckning detta även gäller virtuella karaktärer. Detta arbete hade som mål att undersöka effekterna av visuella likheter mellan människor och virtuella karaktärer, med fokus på ansikten och genus och i en kontext där empati är betydande. En metod för att konstruera virtuella karaktärer som hade visuella likheter med specifika användare utvecklades, och en användarstudie med 13 deltagare genomfördes. I det konstruerade scenariot berättade en karaktär, som hade likheter med användaren antingen gällande ansiktets utseende och/eller genus, självbiografiska historier. Intrycket av karaktären och den emotionella responsen mättes. Resultaten visade att den visuella likheten inte uppfattades explicit. Dock fanns tendenser som pekar på att likheter framför allt när det gäller sociala kategorier som genus, kan ha en positiv påverkan på hur virtuella karaktärer uppfattas. Det gick inte att upptäcka några skillnader mellan betingelserna gällande den emotionella responsen, men resultaten påvisade intressanta avvikelser från de förväntade reaktionerna. Möjligheterna att designa och anpassa virtuella karaktärer till olika individer och situationer ökar, vilket kan utnyttjas för att försöka påverka hur människor förhåller sig till och interagerar med dem. Det är dock svårt att förutsäga hur människor kommer att reagera och relatera till en virtuell karaktär utifrån generella tendenser, vilket denna studie visar. Virtuella karaktärer kan möjliggöra en mer människolik interaktion med teknik, men det innebär också att många parametrar är inblandade och att relationerna med tekniken blir liksom relationerna mellan människor: komplexa.

Despite being a highly profitable industry, very few MMORPGs have managed to find commercial success over the past decades. One commonly identified problem is their near-exclusive reliance on social interaction as a means of attracting and retaining a sustainable player base, and their failure to achieve the network effect required to establish that appeal. This research proposes a complementary approach that leverages emergent narrative in order to diminish the genre’s reliance on social interaction, specifically through the use of persistent player characters to believably populate the game world.
Trots att det är en mycket lönsam industri, har bara några få MMORPGs lyckats hitta kommersiell framgång under de senaste decennierna. Ett allmänt identifierat problem är deras nästintill uteslutande tillit till social interaktion för att locka till sig och behålla en varaktig spelarbas, och deras misslyckande att uppnå nätvärkseffekten som krävs för att skapa denna dragningskraft. Denna forskning föreslår ett kompletterande tillvägagångssätt som utnyttjar emergent narratives för att minska genrens beroende av social interaktion, specifikt genom att använda persistenta karaktärer för att trovärdigt befolka spelvärlden

La tesi intende proporre una metodologia basata sulla Data Visualization che assuma il ruolo di strumento di narrazione della città e di servizio collaborativo e generativo rivolto alle comunità di cittadini. Gli obiettivi su cui si concentra la trattazione sono: -Diffondere conoscenza relativa ai processi di trasformazione del territorio; -Ibridare i processi di misurazione e restituzione visuale degli aspetti quantitativi e la restituzione degli aspetti qualitativi che emergono dall’analisi degli individui all’interno di una comunità; -Intensificare la consapevolezza delle potenzialità insite nei contesti territoriali, aumentando il senso di appartenenza attraverso l’applicazione di processi partecipativi; -Fornire forme di informazione di varia natura per promuovere la ricerca collaborativa e la costruzione di nuova conoscenza. I dati verranno intesi in questo lavoro come un medium bidirezionale per la narrazione (Lupi, 2016): essi saranno sia intesi come il prodotto di processi automatizzati, che possono essere compresi e comunicati attraverso l’analisi e la narrazione, sia come filtro per la lettura di fenomeni che interessano la sfera sociale e cittadina degli individui e che convenzionalmente non sono descritti attraverso i dati. La città viene interpretata in questo lavoro come la condensazione tra lo spazio costruito e lo spazio di oggettivazione delle abitudini e dei comportamenti degli abitanti, e come luogo ideale di sperimentazione a causa della sua natura trasformativa. Tenendo in considerazione questi assunti, verrà proposta una metodologia collaborativa di Data Visualization integrata da pratiche proprie del service design, che ne amplino il concetto di collettività. La domanda di ricerca fondamentale di questo lavoro si può esprimere come: La narrazione data-driven può essere la chiave di una nuova consapevolezza da parte dei cittadini e una semplificazione nella co-produzione e fruizione di servizi per una città aperta e collaborativa?

This item is only available in print in the UCF Libraries. If this is your Honors Thesis, you can help us make it available online for use by researchers around the world by following the instructions on the distribution consent form at http://library.ucf
B.S.
Bachelors
Arts and Sciences
Digital Media

The large and ever-increasing amounts of multi-dimensional, multivariate, multi-source, spatio-temporal data represent a major challenge for the future. The need to analyse and make decisions based on these data streams, often in time-critical situations, demands integrated, automatic and sophisticated interactive tools that aid the user to manage, process, visualize and interact with large data spaces. The rise of `Web 2.0', which is undisputedly linked with developments such as blogs, wikis and social networking, and the internet usage explosion in the last decade represent another challenge for adapting these tools to the Internet to reach a broader user community. In this context, the research presented in this thesis introduces an effective web-enabled geovisual analytics framework implemented, applied and verified in Adobe Flash ActionScript and HTML5/JavaScript. It has been developed based on the principles behind Visual Analytics and designed to significantly reduce the time and effort needed to develop customized web-enabled applications for geovisual analytics tasks and to bring the benefits of visual analytics to the public. The framework has been developed based on a component architecture and includes a wide range of visualization techniques enhanced with various interaction techniques and interactive features to support better data exploration and analysis. The importance of multiple coordinated and linked views is emphasized and a number of effective techniques for linking views are introduced. Research has so far focused more on tools that explore and present data while tools that support capturing and sharing gained insight have not received the same attention. Therefore, this is one of the focuses of the research presented in this thesis. A snapshot technique is introduced, which supports capturing discoveries made during the exploratory data analysis process and can be used for sharing gained knowledge. The thesis also presents a number of applications developed to verify the usability and the overall performance of the framework for the visualization, exploration and analysis of data in different domains. Four application scenarios are presented introducing (1) the synergies among information visualization methods, geovisualization methods and volume data visualization methods for the exploration and correlation of spatio-temporal ocean data, (2) effective techniques for the visualization, exploration and analysis of self-organizing network data, (3) effective flow visualization techniques applied to the analysis of time-varying spatial interaction data such as migration data, commuting data and trade flow data, and (4) effective techniques for the visualization, exploration and analysis of flood data.

Já não vemos a possibilidade de sustentar a ideia do formato notícia como o produto final da cadeia de produção jornalística digital. O desajuste que aqui enxergamos não está na notícia, ou em sua estrutura tradicional, ou em sua função social, mas no seu entendimento como produto final, como efeito de uma causa, como desfecho, epílogo ou conclusão de um processo. O desajuste está no termo final, que pressupõe um início. Já não vemos o formato narrativo digital como um produto hereditário de uma cadeia linear e fechada de produção no jornalismo. No lugar do controle e da linearidade, proporemos neste estudo observar a produção narrativa dentro de um processo circular típico do jornalismo pós-industrial. Em vez de fechamentos de formatos estáticos, notaremos continuidades com formatos adaptativos e mais leveza e imponderabilidade no lugar de estruturas narrativas rígidas e sólidas. Esse é, de fato, um estudo que abraça o desconforto e a beleza das incertezas que nascem da relação forma-conteúdo-tela das narrativas digitais no jornalismo. O que nos interessará aqui será criar um instrumento teórico para lidar com essa condição complexa. Assim, propomos um modelo teórico capaz de expandir a compreensão do que seja a narrativa digital jornalística, inaugurando um modo sistêmico de se pensar o desenho das narrativas no jornalismo digital e fornecendo assim um entendimento novo para este fenômeno. Neste estudo o termo \"narrativa\" não irá, portanto, se referir apenas ao que vemos nas telas de nossos dispositivos tecnológicos. Expandimos neste trabalho a perspectiva da narrativa clássica que toma a narrativa jornalística como o agenciamento dos fatos e a colocamos como agenciamento coletivo entre os estratos do sistema narrativo ou, de forma mais reduzida, assumimos a narrativa como sistema narrativo. Expansão, aqui, significa dilatação da visão e não negação ou discordância em relação às construções e percursos teóricos que precedem esta pesquisa. Para a construção do modelo teórico, partimos da narratologia pós-clássica, da moderna teoria dos sistemas e do modelo JDBD (Jornalismo Digital de Base de Dados). Observamos, nesta jornada, que o agenciamento entre os estratos do sistema narrativo realiza-se de forma coletiva por diversos atores: jornalistas, engenheiros, designers, webmasters, especialistas em negócios, arquitetos de informação, usuários, robôs, softwares, algoritmos, entre muitos outros; e que o jornalista atua sobretudo nas camadas de frontend do sistema. Familiarizando-se com camadas mais subterrâneas do sistema narrativo, a antenarrativa (dados e metadados), o jornalista abre oportunidades para melhor comunicar suas histórias no ciberespaço, interfaceando formatos que provoquem experiências ricas para suas audiências. Em nosso entendimento, o jornalista é, portanto, potencialmente um designer da experiência narrativa.
We no longer see the digital narrative format as a product of a linear hereditary and closed production in digital journalism. We no longer see the the form of news, their format, what we see in the screens, as a final product. The imbalance that we see here is not in the news itself or in its traditional structure, or even in its social function, but in understand it as an end product, as an effect or a cause, as an outcome, the epilogue or the conclusion of a process. The misfit is in this notion: the end, which implies a beginning. nstead of control and linearity, we propose in this study to observe the storytelling production inside a circular process, a loop that is typical of a post-industrial journalism. Instead of closing static formats, we will notice continuities with adaptive shapes. More lightness and weightlessness rather than rigid and solid narrative structures. In fact, this is a study that embraces both the discomfort and the beauty of the uncertainties that arise from the relationship between forms, contents and screens when we analyse digital storytelling in journalism context. What concern us here shall be create a theoretical apparatus to address this complex condition. In this way, this study opens up a systemic way to think about the design of narratives in digital journalism and thus provide a new insight of this phenomenon. The term storytelling will not, therefore, refer only to what we see on the screens of our technological devices. Here we expand the perspective of classical narrative (the arrangement of the events) and place it as the collective assemblage among the strata of narrative system. Or in other words: in this study, narrative is narrative system. It is worth to emphasize that when we say \" expansion of perspective,\" we mean dilation of vision and no denial nor disagreement with the theoretical constructs and pathways that precede this research .For the construction of the theoretical model, we start from the post-classical narratology, the modern theory of systems and the JDBD model. We observed, in this journey, the arrangement of the narrative system is held collectively by several actors: journalists, engineers, designers, webmasters, business specialists, information architects, users, robots, software, algorithms, among many others. And the journalist operates in some of the strata of the storytelling system, especially in the frontend layers. If familiar with subterranean layers of narrative system, the antenarrative (data and metadata), journalists provide opportunities to better communicate their stories in cyberspace, interfacing formats which cause rich experiences for its audiences. In our understanding, the journalist is potentially a narrative experience designer.

The focus of this thesis was to use serious games as a tool to teach about obligation to give notice. Obligation to give notice means that certain professionals need to report to social services if a child is being harmed. This thesis studied if case-based storytelling could bring a relevant teaching experience, if storytelling could help participants learn about obligation to give notice and how instant and delayed feedback affect the learning. Participants played a story-based game with either instant or delayed feedback and answered three questionnaires about obligation to give notice. The study found that participants did find that the storytelling was useful for learning and gaining more knowledge about about obligation to give notice. For the feedback it was found that both types of feedback made the participants learn significantly more but there was no significant difference when comparing the feedbacks to each other.

Art du flux, data art, l’art numérique s’approprie les flux de données. Le rapport au réel et au temps qui s’y joue semble propice à la narration, pourtant les œuvres intègrent rarement des récits. Choisissant la voie de la recherche création, cette thèse explore les potentialités narratives des flux de données. Articulant les approches techniques, sémiotiques, sociales et esthétiques, la réflexion se nourrit, outre les sciences de l’information et de la communication, de disciplines variées telles que l’informatique, la philosophie, la sociologie, les sciences cognitives et la narratologie. L’œuvre Lucette, Gare de Clichy a été créée spécifiquement pour répondre à la question de recherche. La structure de l’œuvre a été déclinée en une version écran et une version performance. Elle est étudiée depuis sa création jusqu’à sa réception par le public. L’installation de Jonathan Fletcher Moore Artificial Killing Machine est analysée en parallèle. Dans un premier temps, l’objet de recherche – le récit fondé sur un flux de données en temps réel - est défini et le concept de moulins à données est forgé pour désigner ce type d’œuvres. Quatre hypothèses sont ensuite formulées et vérifiées successivement. Si les moulins à données sont à même de configurer une représentation de type narratif, ils doivent pour cela s’affranchir de la logique de l’action. Le récit de fiction est alors mis en mouvement par le réel. La métaphore qui relie les données du réel à la fiction provoque une oscillation de l’attention du spectateur entre le comparé et le comparant. Cette métaphore-switch possède la capacité de renforcer le sens qu’elle véhicule. Les moulins à données sont ainsi à même de faire ressentir la contingence de la vie telle que l’éprouve une personne vulnérable, ballotée entre temps objectif et temps subjectif
Sometimes called stream art or data art, digital art seizes data streams as its raw materials. Choosing a path of creative research, this thesis explores the story-telling potentialities of data streams. Structured around technical, social, semiotic and aesthetic approaches, its thinking draws on various fields of study : information and communication sciences, but also computer sciences, cognitive sciences, philosophy, sociology and narratology. The work Lucette, Gare de Clichy was especially designed to answer the researched question. The conformation of the work allowed for two different versions of it : a screen version and a performance. It is studied in all its stages, from its creation process to the public's response to it. Jonathan Fletcher Moore's installation, Artificial Killing Machine, is also analyzed. First, our object of research - stories made from a real-time data stream - is defined and the concept of data mills is crafted to refer to this type of work. Then four hypothesis are formulated and individually verified. If data mills are to be able to form a narrative representation, they must free themselves from the logic of action. Thus can fiction become powered by reality. The metaphor that links the data originated in reality and the crafted fiction generates in the viewer a shifting of focus between what is compared and what compares. This switching-metaphor has the power to reinforce the meaning it carries. Data mills are therefore able to convey the contingency of life as experienced by a vulnerable individual, tossed back and forth between objective and subjective time

In September 2017, the Trump administration announced its plan to rescind The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA). Since then, program recipients, who have in recent years assumed the name "Dreamers," have fought back. This thesis explores how Dreamers use storytelling as a means of articulating individual and collective identity as a form of resistance in the sociopolitical climate that is Trump's America.

M.Com. (Marketing Management)
The marketing research industry is a highly competitive environment with over one hundred marketing research firms competing for business in the South African market. Literature suggests that one of the biggest challenges the industry faces is poor positioning. Marketing research firms are seen as data suppliers rather than business or strategic thought partners. This is mainly the result of marketing research firms traditionally providing masses of data with no or limited insights, practical use and strategic value (also known as actionability of research results). This state of affairs in the industry needs to be addressed, otherwise marketing research firms will become less profitable and effective data / research information suppliers. To warrant future business and increased revenues, marketing research firms need to position themselves as professionals who can deliver actionable research results that assist clients strategically. Literature suggests various methods in which marketing research firms can achieve this; amongst which data visualisation and storytelling are identified as two such methods to deliver actionable research results which impact clients’ business. Therefore, the primary research objective of this study was to uncover the strategic use of data visualisation and storytelling by marketing research firms in quantitative research reports. To address this objective, this study was conducted in two phases, first literature on the topic was presented, followed by an empirical study. The empirical study independently followed an exploratory and descriptive research design where two samples were used. The main study (qualitative phase) sampled individuals, working for South African marketing research firms, who oversee teams who create quantitative research reports by means of indepth interviews; and the small-scale complementary study (quantitative phase) sampled clients of marketing research firms who receive these quantitative reports by means of an computer-administered, Internet-based survey. The studies were conducted sequentially; the small-scale complementary study followed after the main study had been completed. The Morse and Field approach was used to analyse the empirical research results of the main study which indicated that marketing research firms do not claim to have a traditional approach to quantitative reporting; the focus is not on data supply, but rather on providing actionable research results to clients which adds value to their business decision-making. The results also indicate that marketing research firms use storytelling to deliver actionable research so as to increase the strategic value thereof, while data visualisation is not used strategically. The results of the small-scale complementary study indicated that although 62% of clients feel that current quantitative research reports (received from marketing research firms) can be used to make strategic decisions, clients also feel that quantitative research reports need improvement regarding the delivery of strategic and actionable research reports. The exploration of the current quantitative reporting landscape and the evaluation of whether South African marketing research firms strategically use data visualisation and storytelling, have helped in identifying barriers to adoption of these methods and recommended how these could be overcome; it also identified specific measures to bridge the gap between data supply and strategic (actionable) research. The study found that marketing research firms should continue and strengthen their focus on actionable research as client demand therefor will continue; this can be achieved through a number of ways such as by focusing on understanding the client’s business, demonstrating thought leadership, being future focused, strengthening storytelling capabilities and developing / possibly investing in data visualisation capabilities.

This thesis investigates a cultural logic of information. In a world saturated with information, how is representation defined, and what kinds of boundaries does it consequently set up for establishing what can be known? I argue that a cultural logic of information articulates a common cultural definition for representation: information is understood as either a “true” representation of reality, or a substitute for reality itself. As a result, information comes to be conflated with knowledge. But, in contrast to calls (scholarly and otherwise) to police the boundaries of information, I argue 1) that information is exceedingly difficult to separate, in kind, from storytelling, because 2) the provision of information almost always entails scrambles for narrative representation, which 3) are always staged in the terms of genre. The function of these conclusions is the constant undermining of this cultural logic. I examine the intersection of a variety of cultural and theoretical objects, including: Fox News and “Make America Great Again”; scientific modelling of climate change; Claude Shannon’s mathematical theory of communication; Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle; YouTube “lifestyle” communities; and the documentary “The Act of Killing.” I suggest that a methodology that accounts for the imbrication of information and storytelling better accounts for the vicissitudes of, and ideological struggles over, these cultural phenomena. It does so, in particular, by engaging with the subjective experience of information, and assessing how subjects imagine their relations to information and to networks. The purpose of this argument is to intervene in conversations about the articulation of life in control societies.
Graduate
2021-06-20

Dissertação de Mestrado em Design e Multimédia apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia
A visualização de informação tem vindo a ganhar gradualmente um lugar de destaque entre a comunidade científica e jornalística. A evolução tecnológica, a par de uma crescente preocupação em divulgar dados, contribuiu para esse processo. O facto de existir uma maior facilidade no acesso aos dados e na sua análise, fez com que rapidamente surgissem várias formas de interpretar e representar a informação visualmente. Desta forma, a análise de dados temporais e geográficos são o ponto de partida para esta dissertação, que se debruça sobre o tema das alterações climáticas. Este é um assunto que apesar de ser atual, ainda não tem sido muito trabalhado pela área da visualização de informação. Na maior parte das visualizações estudadas é apenas representado um tipo de dado, como por exemplo, a evolução das temperaturas ao longo do tempo.O projeto desenvolvido no âmbito desta dissertação tem como objetivo seguir um modelo de storytelling. A plataforma estará organizada em cinco separadores, que irão guiar o utilizador ao longo do projeto. Destes cinco, consideramos os três primeiros como os separadores principais - (i) ‘Responsáveis’, (ii) ‘Alterações’ e (iii) ‘Sugestões’-, pois são estes que contêm as visualizações e sugestões para melhorar o comportamento ecológico. Com esta disposição, pretende-se envolver o público-alvo, que foi definido previamente como sendo os jovens-adultos, numa história que é contada através da visualização de informação.A presente dissertação tem como principal objetivo consciencializar os jovens-adultos para a temática que está a ser abordada – as alterações climáticas, através da representação visual de dados. Pretende ainda evidenciar os potenciais responsáveis e as mudanças que o Planeta tem vindo a sofrer.
Information visualization has gradually gained a prominent place among the scientific and journalistic community. The technological advances along with the growing concern to disseminate data has contributed to this process.The fact that it is easier to access and analyse open source datasets, led to the emergence of several techniques to interpret and represent information in a visual manner. Hence, the analysis of temporal and geographic data is the starting point for this dissertation, which focuses on the theme of climate change. This is a subject that despite being current, has not been much worked in the field of information visualization. Most of the existing visual representations focus only on a single type of data, the evolution of temperatures over time. The project developed under this dissertation aims to follow a storytelling model. The platform will be organized into five tabs that will guide the user through the project. From these five tabs, we consider the first three to be the main ones - (i) 'Responsible', (ii) 'Changes' and (iii) 'Suggestions' - as these contain the views and suggestions for improving ecological behavior. With this arrangement, we intend to involve the target audience, previously defined as young adults, in a story told through visualization of information.The present dissertation has as main objective to make young adults aware of the theme that is being study - climate change, through the visual representation of data. It is also our intent to highlight the potential responsible for these changes and the changes that the Planet has been undergoing.

A presente dissertação tem como principal objectivo documentar a crescente liberdade visual no jornalismo e a imposição do Infográfico nesse panorama. O aparecimento das redes sociais e a consequente urgência em partilhar conteúdos fez com que a imprensa escrita se adaptasse e inaugurasse uma nova era comunicativa. Os infográficos são talvez a principal marca - antes tidos como recurso e, hoje em dia, indiscutivelmente vistos como género. No online é o infográfico interactivo que combina em si todas as potencialidades oferecidas pela multimédia. A análise comparada entre dois jornais de referência – Público, o jornal mais bem desenhado da Península Ibérica, e o jornal britânico The Guardian, vencedor do Pulitzer 2014 – pretende confirmar a imposição do infográfico enquanto narrativa jornalística.
This dissertation aims to document the increasing freedom in visual journalism and the imposition of the Infographic in this panorama. The emergence of social networks and the consequent urgency to share content caused the press to adapt communicative and inaugurate a new era. The infographics are perhaps the main brand -­‐ previously considered feature and today firmly seen as gender. It is the online interactive infographic that combines all the potentialities offered by the online media. The comparison between two leading newspapers -­‐ Público, awarded the ‘Iberian best-­‐designed newspaper’ and the british newspaper The Guardian, winner of the Pulitzer 2014 -­‐ aims to confirm the imposition of the infographic as a journalistic narrative.