Information Visualization: Consideration of the Top 50 Publishers
Out of the Visualizations provided by GNC, one that really jumped out was the one that showed the likings of the “Top 50 publishers.” Something that often peaks interest quickly is the idea of rank listings as they often give viewers biased listings of the best sort of thing one is looking for at the moment. They are really easy to come across, however this one was quite different than most as it came in a visualization format. Usually these listings come in the format of a list, however this information was provided via a bar chart. A bar chart provides data via the use of bars which exemplify certain data points. This chart is often used to highlight patterns regarding an arrangement of data. This particular bar chart is highlighting the Top 50 publishers with its axis highlighting the name of the publisher and the other data being collected. This chart is showing who are the more known or popular publishers with the likes of DC Comics, Drawn and Quarterly, and the Pantheon having the biggest bars within the chart. Although the list is called the Top 50 publishers this chart fails to highlight what actual data is being collected, all we know is some of the publishers have bigger bars, but we can possibly assume it is recording how many publicists each of these major publishers have. That missing information, specifically the names of the axes, would definitely make this chart easier to read for most. Nonetheless it still effectively shows some type of relationship amongst the publishers provided. Consider the idea, “Visualizations are convincing by virtue of their graphic qualities and can easily distort the data. While all visualizations are interpretations, some are more suited to the structure of a given data set than others.” (Data Viz Chapter 6). The information provided by visualizations is something that should definitely not be overlooked as they play a pivotal role in understanding data. Data, on its own, has a particular relevance within society thus the usage of visualization can only make data stand out more.
https://groups.uni-paderborn.de/graphic-literature/gncorpus/charts/publisher.php
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