Election Data Visualisation

Visualisations of election data produced by the mass media, other organisations and even individuals are becoming increasingly available across a wide variety of platforms and in many different forms. As more data become available digitally and as improvements to computer hardware and software are made, these visualisations have become more ambitious in scope and more user-friendly. Research has shown that visualising data is an extremely powerful method of communicating information to specialists and non-specialists alike. This amounts to a democratisation of access to political and electoral data. To some extent political science lags behind the progress that has been made in the field of data visualisation. Much of the academic output remains committed to the paper format and much of the data presentation is in the form of simple text and tables. In the digital and information age there is a danger that political science will fall behind. This thesis reports on a number of case studies where efforts were made to visualise election data in order to clarify its structure and to present its meaning. The first case study demonstrates the value of data visualisation to the research process itself, facilitating the understanding of effects produced by different ways of estimating missing data. A second study sought to use visualisation to explain complex aspects of voting systems to the wider public. Three further case studies demonstrate the value of collaboration between political scientists and others possessing a range of skills embracing data management, software engineering, broadcasting and graphic design. These studies also demonstrate some of the problems that are encountered when trying to distil complex data into a form that can be easily viewed and interpreted by non-expert users. More importantly, these studies suggest that when the skills balance is correct then visualisation is both viable and necessary for communicating information on elections

The Maple Spring as the Background for the Flourishing of the Fifth Estate in Québec

The political disengagement of the Millennials has long been a subject of scholarly debate. Using ethnographic research methods, our lab conducted a multi-sited field study to investigate the digital practices of some of the community networks that have emerged or consolidated since the Maple Spring. Our field findings suggest that the Millennial student protesters – alongside citizens from all generations who have lent them their support – have actively engaged in their own forms of political participation and by doing so, have helped to firmly entrench the Fifth Estate in Québec society. In particular, we have found that these grassroots networks might have expanded Québec’s alternative press by using interactive technologies to self-publish, self-represent and self-document issues that are of great concern to them and have typically not been topics up for debate on the public agenda. Our analysis brings to the fore the fraught relationship between the Fifth Estate and the four traditional democratic institutions

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N

Understanding and Engaging Online Audiences

Social media has turned all of us into potential authors of content. This phenomenon has further facilitated the formation of new dynamic audiences -- all of whom center on the data we share. Although there have been several related analyses, most research assumes that the online audience is only an observer. This has led to the design of platforms that are adaptations of traditional marketing tools wherein audiences are surveyed and categorized anonymously and content authors have minimal interaction with them. The types of collaborations produced by such tools are limited.This research recognizes that the internet has transformed how authors and audiences operate. The thesis explores the dynamics of this emerging ecosystem, from authors, who share personal content with friends and family, to citizen reporters who collaborate with audiences to oppose drug cartels. The thesis demonstrates how to incorporate the understanding of these dynamics into the design of novel platforms. The thesis does this via individual case stories of such systems, for instance the prototype system “Hax,” which dynamically allows people to visualize relevant audiences for sharing and collaborating, or the tool Botivist, which dynamically recruits and assembles collective efforts with online audiences. The thesis discusses how, together, we can create a future where platforms produce a true symbiosis between authors and audiences to facilitate collective efforts

Seeing the City Digitally

This book explores what's happening to ways of seeing urban spaces in the contemporary moment, when so many of the technologies through which cities are visualised are digital. Cities have always been pictured, in many media and for many different purposes. This edited collection explores how that picturing is changing in an era of digital visual culture. Analogue visual technologies like film cameras were understood as creating some sort of a trace of the real city. Digital visual technologies, in contrast, harvest and process digital data to create images that are constantly refreshed, modified and circulated. Each of the chapters in this volume examines a different example of this processual visuality is reconfiguring the spatial and temporal organisation of urban life

CHORUS Deliverable 2.2: Second report - identification of multi-disciplinary key issues for gap analysis toward EU multimedia search engines roadmap

After addressing the state-of-the-art during the first year of Chorus and establishing the existing landscape in multimedia search engines, we have identified and analyzed gaps within European research effort during our second year. In this period we focused on three directions, notably technological issues, user-centred issues and use-cases and socio- economic and legal aspects. These were assessed by two central studies: firstly, a concerted vision of functional breakdown of generic multimedia search engine, and secondly, a representative use-cases descriptions with the related discussion on requirement for technological challenges. Both studies have been carried out in cooperation and consultation with the community at large through EC concertation meetings (multimedia search engines cluster), several meetings with our Think-Tank, presentations in international conferences, and surveys addressed to EU projects coordinators as well as National initiatives coordinators. Based on the obtained feedback we identified two types of gaps, namely core technological gaps that involve research challenges, and “enablers”, which are not necessarily technical research challenges, but have impact on innovation progress. New socio-economic trends are presented as well as emerging legal challenges

Talking/Speaking/Stalking/Streaming: Artist’s Browsers and Tactical Engagements with the Early Web

The thesis discusses three artist-made browsers from the late 1990s. As the Web transitioned from a niche information system to global telecommunications infrastructure, these artists created functional software that explored the socioeconomic, political, and cultural ramifications of these rapidly changing networked technologies. The thesis argues that these artworks seized upon the browser—an interface between users and information—as a tactical point of intervention. These artist’s browsers presented alternative interfaces to the Web, visualizing how commercial browsers shape access to networked information while also making available new modalities of interaction. These artworks encouraged users to develop a critical awareness of how the Web functioned, and built on that awareness by offering tactics for interaction. Framing browsing as a union of reading and writing practices, these artists envisioned how the Web might be reshaped if users could fully leverage the browser as a means of both information production and consumption.Master of Art