The conventions and politics of migration data visualizations

William L Allen

doi:10.1177/14614448211019300

Abstract

What visual features characterize online migration data visualizations, and what do they suggest for the politics of representing migration and informing public attitudes? Audiences increasingly encounter quantitative information through visualization, especially in digital environments. Yet visualizations have political dimensions that manifest themselves through “conventions,” or shared symbols and practices conveying meaning. Using content analysis, I identify patterns of representation in a sample of 277 migration data visualizations scraped from Google Images. I find evidence of several conventions including appeals to objectivity and traceability as well as perspectives and units of analysis centered on states—particularly higher income migrant destinations. Then, by locating my analysis within the growing field of digital migration studies, I argue these conventions potentially shape public attitudes and understandings about migrants, and contribute to broader migration politics involving categorization and quantification that have relevance both on- and off-line.

Highlights

What visual features characterize online migration data visualizations, and what do they suggest for the politics of representing migration and informing public attitudes? Audiences increasingly encounter quantitative information through visualization, especially in digital environments
While the concept of visual conventions highlights the political significance of visual patterns in data visualization, it raises empirical questions about how prevalent they are among images that are available to audiences
Drawing upon prior semiotic work to develop my coding scheme and interpret the results, I demonstrate the extent to which key patterns existed within this set of images: a limited number of chart types; the prevalence of white backgrounds; supporting annotation indicating the underlying data sources; symbols and plots using the nation-state as the primary unit of analysis, and reporting statistics drawn from higher income migrant destination countries; and branding that, when present, typically referred to the media outlet that published the visualization

Summary

Introduction

What visual features characterize online migration data visualizations, and what do they suggest for the politics of representing migration and informing public attitudes? Audiences increasingly encounter quantitative information through visualization, especially in digital environments. Drawing upon prior semiotic work to develop my coding scheme and interpret the results, I demonstrate the extent to which key patterns existed within this set of images: a limited number of chart types (mostly variations of bar and line graphs); the prevalence of white backgrounds; supporting annotation indicating the underlying data sources; symbols and plots using the nation-state as the primary unit of analysis, and reporting statistics drawn from higher income migrant destination countries; and branding that, when present, typically referred to the media outlet that published the visualization.

Results

Conclusion