"The main message is that sustainability would help" – Reflections on takeaway messages of climate change data visualizations

"The main message is that sustainability would help" – Reflections on takeaway messages of climate change data visualizations

Abstract

How do different audiences make sense of climate change data visualizations and what do they take away as a main message? To investigate this question, we are building on the results of a previous study, focusing on expert opinions regarding public climate change communication and the role of data visualizations. Hereby, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 experts in the fields of climate change, science communication, or data visualization. We also interviewed six lay persons with no professional background in either of these areas. With this analysis, we aim to shed light on how lay audiences arrive at an understanding of climate change data visualizations and what they take away as a main message. For two exemplary data visualizations, we compare their takeaway messages with messages formulated by experts. Through a thematic analysis, we observe differences regarding the included contents, the length and abstraction of messages, and the sensemaking process between and among the participant groups.

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Authors
  • Schuster, Regina Maria Veronika
  • Koesten, Laura
  • Gregory, Kathleen
  • Möller, Torsten
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Shortfacts
Category
Paper in Conference Proceedings or in Workshop Proceedings (Paper)
Event Title
ACMCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2023
Divisions
Visualization and Data Analysis
Subjects
Angewandte Informatik
Informatik in Beziehung zu Mensch und Gesellschaft
Event Location
Hamburg, Germany
Event Type
Workshop
Event Dates
28 Apr 2023
Date
April 2023
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