People around the world use digital tools and visualization techniques to expose injustice and abuse. They create narratives to challenge the status quo and mobilize for action. Whether we’re swamped by it or starved of it, the value of information depends on its quality. Its usefulness depends on our ability to communicate it successfully. As activists, we can’t sit and wait for people to wade through sixty-page reports. To influence people we must make strong arguments and communicate them using strong evidence. Well timed, rigorous and well-presented information is the greatest asset activists have.
This conversation featured human rights defenders who have experience and/or interest in visualizing information. They talked with experts in this topic, to share their experiences, challenges, ideas and resources with each other.
Tactical Tech’s Evidence & Action programme helps rights advocates use information strategically and creatively. Tactical Tech aims to inspire innovative campaigns. They provide practical support for collecting, investigating and curating evidence for advocacy. The program does this through project partnerships, trainings and developing and distributing resources. For example they have a Drawing-by-Numbers toolkit.
Tactical Examples
- Humanitarian Tracker uses data sent by mobile phones to document human rights abuses in Syria. They then geospatially map them on Syria Tracker.
- Amnesty International combines geographic data visualization and interactive mapping to document human rights abuses in Nigeria. They then convey this information to international audiences.
- Al Jazeera and Google Ideas collaborated to make an interactive visualization of loyalty/defections from the Syrian regime. These help human rights activists understand and respond to the situation in Syria.
- Wona Sanana employed participatory research techniques combining data-collection with community education. In doing so they advanced children’s social and economic rights in Mozambique.
- The Story of Stuff Project uses video narration to highlight the problems of mass consumption. They highlight the environmental degradation like this video on the Story of Bottled Water.
- Palestinian activist Hagit Keysarused kites as a DIY aerial mapping technique in Israel. They highlighted the (mis)representations of Israeli-Palestinian geopolitical space.
- A Berlin organization, Tools for Action, ‘threw stones’ in a May 1st protest by using giant inflatables in their rallies. This innovative take humanized their protest. It also incorporated the police into their game, without any violence.
- Created by Brazilian artist Icaro Daria, the Meet the World campaign alters the meaning of national flags. Instead they subvert the nationalistic authority invested in such symbols.
- UNICEF uses infographs, such as Niger: Committing to Child Survival, to highlight the successes of their ongoing campaigns. They also map out what still needs to be done.
Information: Collecting and Cleaning Data
How do activists reduce errors in datasets to create factual and effective graphics? Participants shared various online tools and methods for collecting and cleaning data, such as Open Refine. Interpreting and analyzing data is often challenging. So it is important to know how to find and remove unwanted data and format it correctly. One approach for collecting and editing data are the 5 T’s: Trust, Time, Team, Training, and Tenacity. This framework starts broad with reliable online open source data websites (such as the World Bank, UN Data, etc). Activists should also keep in mind the 4 W’s–What, Where, When, Who–when collecting data. These tools help activists not to pre-presume or collect data based on selection bias.
It is important that activists check their sources for accuracy and secure their data. Participants suggested activists should use tools for encrypting data, such as Security-in-a-Box. But, protecting data from third parties is different from protecting data during collection. More measures should be taken when protecting human rights subjects. Mobile phones present further challenges, but can also be a powerful data tool for projects such as crisis tracking. Mobile phones help document location. This is important for any geographic visualization, but activists shouldn’t store the data they collect on their phones. This is because it is not a secure tool for storing sensitive data.
Gathering, analyzing, and sharing data from community-level sources can be challenging for activists. Participatory research is one answer to these challenges. It involves the community in the processes of data collection.
Planning: Captivating your audience with the right story
After activists collect data, how does data translate to advocacy? Transforming data to advocacy requires a clear set of goal settings that are strong and flexible. Questions such as–What do we want to change? and Who are the actors that can impact this issue?–direct the message and help ground the data in advocacy.
Data visualization takes many forms, from infographics to interactive mapping and videos. They can be a powerful tool to grab audience’s attention and advocate for human rights issues. How do activists infuse visuals with an emotional as well as logical appeal, and avoid being just ‘a great design.’? When creating visuals, activists should ask themselves these important questions. Can someone who didn’t make the graphic summarize the information just by looking at it? And, what message is this visualization conveying or motivating for?
The international human rights community is turning to interactive mapping to document human rights abuses. Humanitarian Tracker and Amnesty International show how data is translated to an interactive map. Their map updates daily on human rights issues in places like Syria and Nigeria. These maps highlight human rights issues and empower human rights activists with the knowledge of how to assess and respond to the crises on the ground. In particular, they connect the international human rights community through data visualization.
Implementing: Producing compelling visualizations to strengthen campaigns
The internet hosts many free websites and technology to collect, analyze, and visualize data. Some examples of these are: Google Earth Animation, Visual.ly, Datawrapper, etc… Sometimes Google Earth or other sources don’t show the complexities of geopolitical space. So activists also practice do-it-yourself (DIY) aerial mapping.
What tool works best for what project? Oftentimes, the number of tools and methods available overwhelms human rights activists. Tactical Tech offers insight into choosing the right tool to use and reviews on how to use them. Organizations also have the option of bringing in a designer. What tools organizations and activists use depends on what project or goal they are trying to do. For example, Humanitarian Tracker’s Syria Tracker presents data differently and using different tools than UNICEF’s infograph on under-five mortality rate in Nigeria. Humanitarian Tracker documents ongoing human rights abuses and trends. Whereas UNICEF maps out a story of a successful ongoing human rights campaign.
Compelling visualizations can take on a life of their own, connecting the audience to the visualization and the campaign. One example of this is The Girl Effect. The Girl Effect uses video stories to present data that captures the audience. Their campaign has become a model for human rights campaigns.
Lessons-learned: What works and what doesn’t
Images and visualizations have power. Manipulating pre-existing images can be powerful subversive tactics and critical social commentary. Creative data visualizations can engage the world in new ways that forces audiences to reconsider notions of truth and fact. However, bad visualizations can harm a campaign’s message or draw attention away from the main point.
Resources
Data Collection and Visualization Tools:
Data Visualization Examples:
- Interactive: Tracking Syria’s Defections: Example from Al Jazeera.
- Syria Tracker: Humanitarian Tracker offers a crisis mapping system that uses crowdsourced text, photo, and video reports to form a live map of the Syrian revolution (2011).
Books, Articles, and Blogposts:
New Tactics Resources:
- New Tactics Conversation:
- Participatory Research for Action
- Geo-mapping for human rights
- The Use of Data Visualization in Human Rights Advocacy
- New Tactics Case Study: Research for Action: A region-wide participatory process to build participation, awareness & advocacy on trade policies
- New Tactics: Tactical Example from Lebanon: Visual mapping to create public awareness and pressure for policy change
