Data journalism visualization in Ukraine and in Europe: a comparative analysis

Abstract

The article aims to investigate the peculiarities of data visualization in Ukrainian and European data media, which will help outline trends and development tendencies in data journalism. The research results will form a list of promising methods and forms of data visualization in journalistic practice. The research used the method of content analysis of journalistic materials and comparative analysis of Ukrainian and European data media. The use of such a methodological toolkit is due to the visual component of the analyzed objects and the need to fill a gap in data journalism research as a comparative analysis of the Ukrainian and European practice of visualizing materials in data media has not been conducted before. The study results showed common trends in using visual resources as the most common way of visualizing data. The European edition uses more types of visual objects in the same material. It was also found that the European data media pay more attention to the text, while the Ukrainian one focuses on the visual component. Common trends are observed when analyzing visualization and interactivity functions. Both editions mostly use visualization to reinforce and supplement textual information, and the hypothesis of a fading trend toward interactivity is confirmed.