Data Journeys in Popular Science: Producing Climate Change and COVID-19 Data Visualizations at Scientific American

Abstract

Vast amounts of (open) data are increasingly used to make arguments about crisis topics such as climate change and global pandemics. Data visualizations are central to bringing these viewpoints to broader publics.However, visualizations often conceal the many contexts involved in their production, ranging from decisions made in research labs about collecting and sharing data to choices made in editorial rooms about which data stories to tell. In this article, we examine how data visualizations about climate change and COVID-19 are produced in popular science magazines, using Scientific American, an established English-language popular science magazine, as a case study. To do this, we apply the analytical concept of 'data journeys' in a mixed methods study that centers on interviews with Scientific American staff and is supplemented by a visualization analysis of selected charts. In particular, we discuss the affordances of working with open data, the role of collaborative data practices, and how the magazine works to counter misinformation and increase transparency. This work provides an empirical contribution by providing insight into the data (visualization) practices of science communicators and demonstrating how the concept of data journeys can be used as an analytical framework.

Data Science Experiences and Emotions:  From Lonesome to Awesome

“…The EE dimension enters the data journeys from the very beginning. As Gregory et al (2024) reported, Scientific American initially chose story ideas based on its staff members' interests and events in their personal lives, and then "Editors use their own emotional responses as an initial gauge to estimate the reception of a story." As a staff responded during a video conference interview conducted byGregory et al (2024), "There's the data, but there's an infinite number of stories we could tell […] If we have an emotional response, that's kind of the first level of oh, maybe this is something that people will also respond to."…”