VizWorld.com

With election time looming on the never-far-enough-away horizon , Robert Kosara takes a look at the ever-popular “approval rating” graph and presents a great alternative (shown above).

Here is my alternative. It is a stacked area chart that contains the approval at the bottom, the undecided percentage in the middle, and the disapproval on top. The colors were chosen deliberately to be easy to interpret (red is bad, blue is like above and it’s also the color of the Democratic Party), and the undecided layer is actually transparent.

via Embracing Uncertainty in Two-Line Charts | eagereyes.

Graphics political

Tableau took some heat when they unexpectedly took down the publicly-created visualizations of the WikiLeaks cables.  Realizing that perhaps that wasn’t the best solution to the touchy subject, they’ve spent some time working on a better solution.  Today, they’ve announced a new Data Policy and Advisory Board, hopefully to prevent this from happening again.

The two main changes to our data policy are:

1. We are establishing a more formal complaint process, by which people can challenge data posted to Tableau Public. By outlining specific circumstances in which we will consider taking down data, the new policy puts complaints through a higher level of scrutiny than before.

2.  We’re more closely aligning our policy with the accepted guidelines for free speech on the internet. You can access our full data policy for more detail at www.tableausoftware.com/public/data-policy.

The advisory board contains people from media, technology, publishing, and communications around the world, offering a nice balanced mix of expertise.

As public data becomes a bigger driver, and more companies find themselves playing the role of “data brokers” and “Visualization brokers”, we’re going to hear more and more about these types of scenarios.  What do you think?  Did Tableau do a good job? Could they have done more?

via The Data is In: New Policy & Advisory Board for Tableau Public | Tableau Public.

Science legal, political, tableau

We’ve talked a bit about Timeplots before, but now they have a new pair of visualizations for everyone interested in politics:  one focusing on the Republican party, and one focusing on the Democratic party.

It places each party event in historical context, visualizing a remarkable range of party events, legislation, election results, and leadership to succinctly tell the story of the party. Narratives are displayed within the larger context of party strength by aggregating and annotating data on presidential elections, Congress, Governorships and State Legislatures. The Timeplot provides a new lens into American political history; it is not intended to be absorbed at a glance, but rather to be visited and revisited over time.

Each one is available as a 36″x24″ poster for $30, or get the pair for $50.

A Visual History of the Republican Party | timeplots.com. and Visual History of the Democratic Party

Graphics infographic, political, poster, timeline, timeplots

The UK just wrapped up a huge election for numerous positions, and the BBC celebrates the event with a visual history of the Swingometer which has been used to visualize and predict elections for the last 50 years.

Made famous by Robert McKenzie, they show the various mechanical and cardboard constructions through the more recent computerized and online versions, complete with detailed photographs of each.

via BBC News – In Pictures: History of the Swingometer.

Science bbc, political, swingometer

Evan Hensleigh has a new infographic on Flickr that shows the history of various government leaders of Kyrgyz, current political hotbed.  It covers the beginning of Kyrgyzstan’s independence in 1991 through the current Easter Revolution, showing the various positions and their occupants.

A good infographic that does a good job of combining the various factual information (People’s names and positions) with context (times, events), in a fairly visible way.  I’m not sure if the colors mean anything, or if they are simply there for clarity.

Flickr Photo Download: The Revolving Door of Kyrgyz Politics. via ChartPorn

Graphics infographic, political

The House is still debating the new Health Care reform bill, and the Washington Post has created an interactive infographic showing how it’s going.  They first show how the individual representatives voted in the earlier November 7th vote, and then show how they are standing for this week’s vote.  They combine this with data about their campaign contributions from the healthcare industry and the amount of their constituency that is uninsured.

It’s a massive amount of information, but if you haven’t been following it closely then it’s a great way to see how your own representatives are standing.

Who’s in play: House health-care vote washingtonpost.com.

PS: I know any post about healthcare is going to bring out spammers & protestors/supporters, so please keep it civil and focused on the Infographic, not necessarily the bill.

Science health, political, washingtonpost

Back in January, the Supreme Court ruled on a 5-4 vote that political spending by corporations in elections is a form of free speech. This raises the fear that corporations can spend large sums of money to essentially buy elections for candidates who will promise to vote their way. Others trumpet it as a victory for the First Amendment. President Obama, in the recent State of the Union speech criticized the ruling saying “Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, …” To which Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words “not true”.

Big spending, and corruption, have been a part of American politics since the birth of the nation. Financial Infographics has created a graphic showing who the largest contributors are, and who the biggest spenders are in Congress. I was quite surprised to see John McCain’s name listed as the biggest spender, by a long shot. He is followed by fellow Republican Mitch McConnell and Democrat Max Baucus.

via : Corporate Campaigning: Where Do Politicians Get Their Money?

Graphics infographic, political

Los Angeles is currently debating the location of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries, attempting to strike a balance between access and control, and one requirement up for debate is that they should be 1000 feet away from residential uses.  But what does that look like?  BlogDownTown whipped up a quick map to find out.

The maps above show 1,000, 500 and 200 foot buffers around residential uses Downtown. They are not an exact visualization of where dispensaries could be located — they don’t include buffers around substance abuse center and may not include all residential hotels — but they’re more than the City Council has to work with.

The City’s planning department is working on creating maps of the ordinance’s effects, but they won’t be ready until January.

via Visualizing the Debate Over Marijuana Dispensary Locations :: blogdowntown.

Graphics map, political

David McCandless and Stefanie Posavec collaborated on created a nice infographic that showcases the differences between the US “Right” (Conservative) & “Left” (Liberal), shown now on Information is Beautiful.

This kind of visual approach to mapping concepts really excites me. I like the way it coaxes me to entertain two apparently contradictory value systems at the same time. Or, in other words, I like the way it f**ks with my head.

His site is suffering a bit under the load, so click on the image above to see it.

via Left vs Right | Information Is Beautiful.

Graphics, Science infographic, political

A few weeks ago we brought you the news of Piero Zagami’s UN Security Council Resolutions (UNSC/R) Visualizations Report , a fantastic collection of visualizations and data regarding resolutions from the UN Security Council.  It took a while, but he took some time to sit down and give us some details on the project and some fantastic higher-resolution images from the report.

Read his information after the break.
Read more…

Graphics, Science feature, infographics, political