The Big Picture on Small Screens Delivering Acceptable Video Quality in Mobile TV

Mobile TV viewers can change the viewing distance and (on some devices) scale the picture to their preferred viewing ratio, trading off size for angular resolution. We investigated optimal trade-offs between size and resolution through a series of studies. Participants selected their preferred size and rated the acceptability of the visual experience on a 200ppi device at a 4: 3 aspect ratio. They preferred viewing ratios similar to living room TV setups regardless of the much lower resolution: at a minimum 14 pixels per degree. While traveling on trains people required videos with a height larger than 35mm

Face to Face, Carl Beam and Andy Warhol

Keira Koch ’19 examines representations of indigenous cultures in prints and photographs by American artist Andy Warhol and First Nations artist Carl Beam. In this comparative study, Koch considers the topic of appropriation and re-appropriation of Native imagery. Warhol, as a non-Indigenous artist, is using this imagery to highlight the dominant narrative of the American West. Beam, however, incorporates photographs of Native subjects and traditional narratives by re-appropriating those images to tell a distinctly Native narrative. This exhibition invites discussion about the role of contemporary indigenous artists and how indigenous identities are expressed in contemporary art. This exhibition intersects with the issues and methodologies studied in Koch’s individualized major titled “Indigenous Cultures, History and Identity.” In addition to studying aboriginal arts and indigenous communities in Australia during her Junior year, Koch serves as the Co-President of Students for Indigenous Awareness at Gettysburg College.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/artcatalogs/1027/thumbnail.jp

Diagrammatics and the Proactive Visualization of Legal Information

This article performs an analysis of one mode of visual legal communication: diagrammatics and the visualization of legal data and other information in legal instruments and communications. The Proactive Law movement and the Legal Design movement each seek to transform legal instruments and documents to improve access to and comprehension of the communication of law to all persons. “All persons” includes both law-trained and non-law-trained persons and extends from the literate and educated all the way to disadvantaged, illiterate, and less-thanfully literate persons. The overall goal of the Proactive Law movement and a primary goal of Legal Design is to improve the understanding of legal rights, relationships, and obligations expressed in legal products, instruments, services, processes, and systems through illustration, simplification, engagement, and inclusiveness in the text and visual components of these instruments and communications

Sketchy rendering for information visualization

We present and evaluate a framework for constructing sketchy style information visualizations that mimic data graphics drawn by hand. We provide an alternative renderer for the Processing graphics environment that redefines core drawing primitives including line, polygon and ellipse rendering. These primitives allow higher-level graphical features such as bar charts, line charts, treemaps and node-link diagrams to be drawn in a sketchy style with a specified degree of sketchiness. The framework is designed to be easily integrated into existing visualization implementations with minimal programming modification or design effort. We show examples of use for statistical graphics, conveying spatial imprecision and for enhancing aesthetic and narrative qualities of visual- ization. We evaluate user perception of sketchiness of areal features through a series of stimulus-response tests in order to assess users’ ability to place sketchiness on a ratio scale, and to estimate area. Results suggest relative area judgment is compromised by sketchy rendering and that its influence is dependent on the shape being rendered. They show that degree of sketchiness may be judged on an ordinal scale but that its judgement varies strongly between individuals. We evaluate higher-level impacts of sketchiness through user testing of scenarios that encourage user engagement with data visualization and willingness to critique visualization de- sign. Results suggest that where a visualization is clearly sketchy, engagement may be increased and that attitudes to participating in visualization annotation are more positive. The results of our work have implications for effective information visualization design that go beyond the traditional role of sketching as a tool for prototyping or its use for an indication of general uncertainty

The Momo Challenge: measuring the extent to which YouTube portrays harmful and helpful depictions of a suicide game

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents (15 to 29 years), who are in a life stage of exceptional vulnerability and susceptibility to depictions of non-suicidal self-injury and suicide. Allegedly, the suicide game Momo Challenge used this vulnerability to demand their players to perform self-harming dares and, ultimately, commit suicide. This study gives insight into the content, engagement rates and community formation of Momo Challenge videos on YouTube. We combine a network analysis (n = 209) with a manual content analysis of the videos (n = 105; 50%). Results show that more than two thirds of the videos include some form of harmful depiction. In addition, videos with a higher extent of harmful depictions are more likely to be engaged with, e.g., through likes (ρ = 0.332, p < 0.001). We discuss how YouTube has responded to the challenge and which implications arise for practice and theory

Race & Crime on the Evening News: New Orleans in the Days after Hurricane Katrina

This study examines how residents of New Orleans, Louisiana were depicted on a variety of evening news programs in the days after hurricane Katrina. A qualitative content analysis of television news transcripts and select audio-visual footage reveals how the media framed crime, the perpetrators of crime and looting. Media perpetuation of myths such as residents shooting at helicopters and the focus on looting and crime had on initial rescue and recovery efforts are also discussed. Results illustrate that the focus on crime, criminals, and looting was more pronounced in cable than network news. Looting was framed as a criminal endeavor and residents were labeled as criminals without evidence. Violent crime was the most frequently-referred to type of crime. The media as a constructor of moral panics, colorblind racism in the form of a coded racist script, and cultural fear of crime support these results

ScaleTrotter: Illustrative Visual Travels Across Negative Scales

We present ScaleTrotter, a conceptual framework for an interactive, multi-scale visualization of biological mesoscale data and, specifically, genome data. ScaleTrotter allows viewers to smoothly transition from the nucleus of a cell to the atomistic composition of the DNA, while bridging several orders of magnitude in scale. The challenges in creating an interactive visualization of genome data are fundamentally different in several ways from those in other domains like astronomy that require a multi-scale representation as well. First, genome data has intertwined scale levels---the DNA is an extremely long, connected molecule that manifests itself at all scale levels. Second, elements of the DNA do not disappear as one zooms out---instead the scale levels at which they are observed group these elements differently. Third, we have detailed information and thus geometry for the entire dataset and for all scale levels, posing a challenge for interactive visual exploration. Finally, the conceptual scale levels for genome data are close in scale space, requiring us to find ways to visually embed a smaller scale into a coarser one. We address these challenges by creating a new multi-scale visualization concept. We use a scale-dependent camera model that controls the visual embedding of the scales into their respective parents, the rendering of a subset of the scale hierarchy, and the location, size, and scope of the view. In traversing the scales, ScaleTrotter is roaming between 2D and 3D visual representations that are depicted in integrated visuals. We discuss, specifically, how this form of multi-scale visualization follows from the specific characteristics of the genome data and describe its implementation. Finally, we discuss the implications of our work to the general illustrative depiction of multi-scale data

Visualizing Racial Mixture and Movement: Music, Notation, Illustration

“Racial representation has often been confined by the media used to depict its complexity—from language that describes race via metaphors of color to the technology of racial representation in black-and-white that obscures nondualistic racial gradation. Written music, like the written word, is a technology of representation. The visual representation of music and the visual representation of race are similar in that they are not mimetic but symbolic. Just as quarter and half notes stand in for certain pitches and durations that might be interpreted through variations such as instrumentation and style, the presence and absence of black ink represents racial difference that in reality is nuanced by gradations in complexion, historical contexts, and cultural resonances of racialization. Music here implies the aural, but also the movement of dance; the waltz and the march produce bodies in motion. The movement of racialized bodies through geopolitical spaces and with relation to one another hints at race’s fluidity. In the two genres on this single sheet, we see what might be understood as different methodological frames for understanding their respective narratives of race. The waltz’s male and female pairing of partners suggests heterosexuality. The march denotes a different kind of movement, not simply interpersonal but movement through geopolitical spaces and in militaristic endeavors.

Curse and/or blessing? Turkish soap operas and their impact on contemporary Algerian women: audience reception and audio-visual analysis of the historical TV drama Harim al-Sultan (The Magnificent Century)

Turkey is now the second biggest TV market exporter after the US finding huge audiences among Arab women. This study examines how Algerian women perceive the Dizi genres, what makes them captivating and influential, and determines the dominant positive and negative themes tackled in these TV dramas. Based on literature review on globalized media, media effect theories, and gender studies, an online focus group discussion, online questionnaires, and interpretative phenomenological analysis techniques this study aims to understand the reception and perception of Turkish TV series by Algerian female viewers. The thesis implements the audio-visual content analysis method on the most-watched Dizi TV drama titled Harim al-Sultan as a case study to identify the prominent features of those soap operas. The findings show that the lack of Algerian local cinematic production, cultural proximity between Turkey and Algeria, Syrian dialect, creative scenarios, and modern lifestyles broadcasted in the Dizi TV dramas has rapidly increased its popularity among Algerian female viewers. The results also indicate that Turkish TV dramas depict women who appear to be modern and independent and who challenge imposed traditional patriarchal values. At the same time, they also promote gender stereotypes, romanticizing rape stories, and spreading Western ideologies under the umbrella of modernity that could threaten or weaken Algerian females’ traditional values. Audio-visual content analysis shows that Harim al-Sultan contains controversial topics, that generated many critiques in terms of history, power, religion, identity, and representation of women. Nonetheless, this study examines how participants incorporate some Dizi TV series’ features in a relevant way to Algerian female traditional values and lifestyles, thus, arguing for the creation of an ambiguous identity which sits at the cusp of traditional principles and modern hybrid identities