Emotion in narrative improves user’s engagement
Analysis of three different data stories across various platfoms
A survey by Google concluded that 42% of the journalists in US, UK, France and Germany use data in their reports[1](2017). The expansion of data-driven stories is influencing every media and platform.
Here three stories from Reuters, The Washington Post and Chequeado are analysed from the narrative point of view.
The interactive explainer
Reuters’ Mass Exodus: The scale of Rohingya crisis is a visual data explainer. This interactive slideshow, according Jeffrey Heer and Edward Segel[3] (2010), belongs to what Michael Shepherd and Carolyn Watters[4] (1998) call the emergent novel cybergenre.
It uses a Martini Glass structure. After the lead, the story is told chronologically, ending with a kicker or a coda, in Martin Cortazzi’s narrative model[5]: the tragedy will continue.
But there is little emotion in this human catastrophe, despite its narrative element.
It seems now that (…) the visualization is the story. However, this does not mean that the importance of the visualization transcends the narrative, Philip Mann[6] (2011).
An effaced narrator tells a story of flight (“movement”) from the point of view of the migrants. Its main character are the asylum seekers, and its setting, the refugee camp in Bangladesh.
The narrative, however, only draws the “big picture”, making victims inanimate statistics. Data drives the story, instead of being used as a context.
You’ll need to tell your story about people first, and numbers second, Paul Bradshaw[7] (2015).
Reuters should have told a story “character-driven”, which improves people’s empathy, according to Paul Zak[8], the director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University.
There is also a lack of characters. Besides the asylum seekers, the text includes a representative of UNHCR. But voices such as the Bangladesh people are missed.
Adding them, enriches the perspectives of the story and the context, which, according to Mark Blaine[9] (2014), explains why people should care and why they are reading it. They could have added links to allow a deeper knowledge of the conflict.
Human emotion can also be given through quotes or images from real people. There is only one, but it is not enough to transmit tragedy. The characters’ experiences or emotions shows (“mimesis” according to Rosemary Huisman, 2005[5]) drama, and they impact positively in the listeners’ interest, says Emma Rodero[8], professor at Pompeu Fabra University.
Speediness and design
Velocity is important in the story, so as to show how quickly numbers grew. To achieve that, Reuters creates an ‘anisochronic’ text that plays with descriptive explanatory pauses, ellipses and summary to manipulate the plot time and the story time (Julian Murphet[5], 2005).
This alters what Rosemary Huisman[5] (2005) calls “pacing” and it favours speed of the text. Interactive elements, like the counter, also contribute to this feeling of quick “overwhelming”.
But interactivity is also used to move the story. With each click, the user advances towards the conclusion: the situation is dramatic.
Everything you’re saying, from the first sentence to the last, is leading to a singular goal, Andrew Stanton[11].
The data information is given according to Ben Shneiderman[12] criteria. First, an overview: numbers increasing. Second, zoom and filters: composition of this population and their necessities.
There is no third step, “details on demand”, because of the limitation of this interactive story, which works as a gallery. The text is, therefore, in the first level of the interactive spectrum of Sandra Gaudenzi[13]: “embellishing”.
Regarding the design, Reuters uses ideograms to show comparison and treemap for composition. Graphic follows the principles[14] of contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity. However, the title, the source and the scale should have been kept during the whole narrative[15].
The fact-checked post
Chequeado’s GIF is another of those novel emergent cybergenres[3]. The character in this case is the journalist; the setting, what the president said, and the movement is the fact of checking the information.
It opts for an action, hook and resolution structure. After Mauricio Macri’s quote, quickly the ‘hook’: the president lies. Then, suspense. And, after, the plot is explained and it ends with the reflection.
There is also emotion and conflict in this condensed data story. Chequeado appeals to the feeling “we’ve been cheated” as a strong emotional element that adds melodrama and improves user’s attraction and recall[17], as well as spreadability.
People share content that they can identify with, which makes them feel recognised, relevant and teaches them about other people’s identities, Juliane Leopold[18] (2015).
But there is another narrative element that contributes to the emotion and conflict in the story: mimesis. Chequeado shows Macri’s quote and his face changing. They also use first person in their response.
The “pacing” is also relevant for emotion and impact. The story is told chronologically, but the time of the plot and the story time (Murphet, 2005[5]) have been highly altered by ellipses in favour of speed.
However, the amount of data is excessive, taking into account the “screen time”. It doesn’t follow the simplification recommendation. “Make sure there is one single thing you want people to see”, according to Sarah Cohen (2012) in Data Journalism Handbook[19].
Overloaded design
The design fulfils the macro/micro level of Edward Tufte[20]. First, provide the user with an overview, and second, the details. However, there are too many details.
The so-called by Tufte as data ink-ratio is also high, with many elements superimposed and overloaded in the text. The figure of the president detracts attention, what Tufte called “chartjunk”.
The GIF also breaks some of the CRAP principles[14]. In terms of contrast, Macri’s figure has a higher visual weight than the message itself and the purple and red colours have a low contrast rate.
Chequeado team could have reduced the presence of the figure and used two layers: one for the elements before the hook, and the other for the explanation. Instead of sentences, they could have used a bar chart to compare the three countries, what would have contributed to the visual communication of the story.
The first goal of an infographic is not to be beautiful just for the sake of eye appeal, but, above all, to be understandable first, and beautiful after that, Alberto Cairo[21] (2012).
The longform data driven
The Wall Street Journal published a longform about inequality in the workplace, but they forgot the ‘small stories’. The characters are women and men in the office (setting), but they are mainly drawn in The hidden battle of the sexes at work as numbers from a survey.
It’s been said that data speaks for itself. This is nonsense. (…) Data didn’t tell a story, you did. You saw a story that connects the data to the world, Jonathan Stray[22] (2016).
Although the focus of the story is a female perspective, the relate is quite plain. The story needs more narrative potential, more “characters in flux”, as features editor for BBC News Online, Giles Wilson[24] said, to make the most of the format. That means more cases of study that talk in direct speech about their emotions and problems.
‘Showing’ instead of telling contributes to the user’s emotional engagement to the story, but also benefits to the mental images the readers get and the speediness, moving the relate forward.
The WSJ report uses an external narrator in third person and present tense, which set the temporal location in a simultaneous position and in a “descriptive pause” narrative tempo.
The author is drawing the present “big picture”, without temporal organisation. The “pacing” is, therefore, slow, due to the length of the text without movement in the story.
Kabob structure
According to Segel and Heer[3], the report is categorized as an extant variant cybergenres. And its structure can be analyzed according Martin Cortazzi’s model[5].
The abstract covers what, when, where and who; the orientation level gives more details; the context is enricher in the complication and evaluation stage; the result level identifies solutions, and the coda looks forward.
However, I would rather a kabob structure with more characters. That would give more anecdotes, more emotions and more personal moments; what increases the engagement of the user and the recall of the information.
The most interesting stuff usually came when they (journalists) interacted with the people in the stories, Ira Glass[25] (2010).
Moreover, according to the American Press Institute[26], multimedia elements are key factors to connect with people. However, WSJ report only uses graphic and an interactive material. There is not any photo, video or illustration representing humans, what would have helped to transmit an emotional message.
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[2] Reuters Graphic (2017) Mass Exodus: The scale of the Rodhingya crisis. Available at: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/MYANMAR-ROHINGYA/010050XD232/index.html [Accessed 13 November 2017]
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[6] Mann, P. (2011) Narrative Structures in Data Visualizations to Improve Storytelling. Available at: https://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/blog/2011/05/03/narrative-structures-in-data-visualizations-to-improve-storytelling/. [Accessed at 13 November 2017]
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[12] Shneiderman, B. (1996) The eyes have it: A task by data type taxonomy for information visualizations [pdf] IEEE Available at: https://www.mat.ucsb.edu/~g.legrady/academic/courses/11w259/schneiderman.pdf [Accessed at 13 November 2017]
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[14] Saylord Academy (2012) Business Information Systems: Design an App for That — C.R.A.P. Principles of Graphic Design. Available at: https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_business-information-systems-design-an-app-for-that/s07-01-c-r-a-p-principles-of-graphic-.html [Accessed at 13 November 2017]
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[16] Chequeado (2016) Empezamos a publicar GIFs sobre nuestros chequeos junto a @uno.ar. Aquí arriba te mostramos el primero que hicimos sobre el actual presidente y también publicamos otro con la misma calificación sobre la ex presidenta. Instagram, 20 July. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BIGOoSzjZdH/?taken-by=chequeado [Accessed at 13 November 2017]
[17] Kleemans, M., Schaap, G., Suijkerbuijk, M. (2017) Getting Youngsters Hooked on News [pdf] Taylor and Francis Online. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1324316 [Accessed at 13 November 2017]
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[20] Tufte, E. (1983) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information 2nd Edition. USA: Edward Tufte.
[21] Cairo, A. (2012) The functional art: An introduction to information graphics and visualisation. Berkeley: New Riders Available at: http://www.thefunctionalart.com/p/about-book.html [Accessed at 13 November 2017]
[22] Stray, J. (2016) The curious journalist’s guide to data. Gitbook. Available at: https://www.gitbook.com/book/towcenter/curious-journalist-s-guide-to-data/details [Accessed at 13 November 2017]
[23] Fuhrmans, V. (2017) The hidden battle of the sexes at work, The Wall Street Journal 10 October. Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hidden-battle-of-the-sexes-at-work-1507608661 [Accessed at 13 November 2017]
[24] Reid, A. (2014) How the BBC approaches longform, immersive storytelling, Journalism.co.uk, 1 August Available at: https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-the-bbc-approaches-longform-immersive-storytelling/s2/a557573/ [Accessed at 13 November 2017]
[25] Glass, I., “Harnessing luch as an industrial product”. In Biewen, J., Smith, S. (2010) Reality Radio. Telling true stories in sound. 1st edition. Center for Documentary Studies: Duke University Press.
[26] Kovacs, K. (2016) How to engage readers with digital longform journalism, American Press Institute, 12 January. Available at: https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/strategy-studies/engaging-longform-journalism/ [Accessed at 13 November 2017]
