Abstract
Abstract. Communication during emergency and crises times is a critical aspect. When available information contains a spatial dimension, maps and interactive localization features may help conveying strong messages to audiences that are otherwise difficult to reach. The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the design and implementation of a great number of online tools to communicate data of the disease spread and its dynamics that are helpful to support informed decisions for both people in their everyday life and decision makers. Observing this phenomenon has inspired this conceptualization of the geo-Online Explanatory Data Visualization (geo-OEDV) tools, set in the context of available geospatial information, of statistical visualisation tools and of the solid tradition of Geographical Information Systems. Blending classical statistical tools, digital cartography, and the confluence of many elements into a single screen, has produced the currently most spread geo-OEDV instance, i.e., the geo-dashboard and geo-infographics. In particular this paper conceptualises geo-OEDV as a category of meta-cartography that blends online communication with cartographic representation and management principles.
Highlights
The co-evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in terms of hardware and software, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), as well as social media networks, has been shifting communication significantly towards visualization means in the last years
The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the main circumstances leading to a wide diffusion of a varied set of cartographic and communication tools, such as web-based dashboards, WebGIS and infographics, blending geographical, graphical and statistical representation approaches publicly available to track, visualize, and communicate indicators related to the diffusion of the disease with a multiple comparative perspective: the technological one, the spatial one, and the conceptual one, referring to ontological categories (Grandi and Bernasconi, 2020; Guallart Moreno, 2020; Bernasconi and Grandi, 2021)
We argue that a new set of conceptual objects have emerged, hereby called geo-Online Explanatory Data Visualization tools, being statistical and cartographic data visualization systems on the web, which fulfil a public communication function, towards both specialists and the general population (Grandi and Bernasconi, 2020) as well as the need of decision makers
Summary
The co-evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in terms of hardware and software, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), as well as social media networks, has been shifting communication significantly towards visualization means in the last years. The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the main circumstances leading to a wide diffusion of a varied set of cartographic and communication tools, such as web-based dashboards, WebGIS and infographics, blending geographical, graphical and statistical representation approaches publicly available to track, visualize, and communicate indicators related to the diffusion of the disease with a multiple comparative perspective: the technological one, the spatial one, and the conceptual one, referring to ontological categories (Grandi and Bernasconi, 2020; Guallart Moreno, 2020; Bernasconi and Grandi, 2021) In this ‘infodemic’ framework, the analysis of the use of tools, choices and actors proposing outbreak-related maps and connected impacts showed a growing diffusion of Online Explanatory Data Visualization (OEDV), with a considerable use of digital cartography. Our works aims to integrate in a systematic manner the online explanatory data visualization with their geographical information system component
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