Seeing Data, Feeling Data: The Visual Language of Numbers in Mona Chalabi’s Instagram Infographics

Abstract

In this paper, I explore the work of data journalist Mona Chalabi, whose data visualizations on Instagram represent a confluence of art, data, and online multimedia. Through her data visualizations, Chalabi makes use of the affordances of Instagram—its audience, its format, its interactivity—to bring to light various critical statistics about social justice issues. In bringing together Instagram and data journalism, Chalabi's data visualizations embody a bold and unique way of enacting digital social justice activism.