Data Journalism is journalism which uses statistical analysis to convey and support information through numerical data. The purpose of data journalism is to provide evidence to prove the truth behind a story. In this day in age people question how valid and the truth behind what is told, data journalism ensures the audience they are receiving the truth with valid facts through data. Data visualisation allows journalists to provide more depth to a story which otherwise cannot be shown without the data and also allows for audiences opinions and discussions to occur due to being able to go deeper with the facts.
The Guardian are pioneers for data journalism as they were the first to introduce data evidence for their stories. Overtime Data Visualisation has changed from the very first visualisations back in Manchester Guardian 1821 when the Guardian recorded data on every school in Manchester through a table to show the number of students in each school, costs etc. The data recorded in a table is the most basic presentation of data journalism and was hard to compare the data easily. As years went on the visualisations improved and moved beyond the basic charts evolving into more visual representations of data. The evolution of bar, line and geographical charts were introduced and have led to more sophisticated, clearer and easy to interoperate visualisations. The Visualisations at current day are now interactive and allow for the user engagement to make the easier and more effective.
Daniel Krivacic Data Visualisation 