Are Charts Going Digital? The Case of Data Visualization on Portuguese Media

Sales and circulation of print publications, either newspapers or magazines, are dropping. In Portugal alone, from 2014 to 2018, there was a drop in printed periodic publications in circulation (INE, 2019a) and a fall of millions of units in the sales of newspapers and magazines (INE, 2019b). At the same time, digital media remains on the rise as the main source of information for the Portuguese population, since 81% of people between the ages of 16 to 74 use the internet to read or download news (INE, 2018). In the process of duplication or migration of content from print to digital, with the rise of multimedia stories, interactivity and mobility, it would be natural that Data Visualization would follow the tendency. Taking the changes in the media landscape into account, a question arose: how are Portuguese media outlets publishing charts, diagrams and infographics? Is Data Visualization rising on digital as other forms of news, like video and audio, or is it maintaining a foot in each platform? Are there any visible differences between the publication of infographics in digital and print editions? The main objective of the present research was to trace patterns of frequency, authorship, design, composition, relevance and themes in order to create a detailed overview of contemporary Data Visualization in Portuguese news outlets. To do this, the research team chose to analyze publications made in 2017, since this was a fruitful year for news in Portugal and the world. The analysis focused on March, August and October, which were the months with the biggest prevalence of newsworthy events of the year. During this period, the team collected, categorized and analyzed all charts, diagrams and infographics published by the 12 media outlets with the biggest readership in Portugal, both in print and digital editions, in March, August and October 2017. These were: Publico, Jornal de Noticias, Diario de Noticias, Expresso, Observador, Correio da Manha, Jornal Economico, Jornal de Negocios, I, Sol, Visao e Sabado, which were divided in daily newspapers, weekly newspapers, economic newspapers, news magazines and one news website. The first step was the design of an analysis sheet, based on a large base of literary influences and previous similar analysis, which included information such as title, date, author, editorial section, theme, type and size of graphics, importance, format, graphical elements, interactivity and appearance on the cover. The results were unexpected, and the differences were outstanding. While some variances were to be anticipated, only one of the 12 news outlets published a similar quantity of infographics or the same infographic on both platforms. All the rest published almost ten times more charts, diagrams and infographics in the print editions than on the websites. This research will enable the team to evaluate how the production of charts, diagrams and infographics in news outlets depends on the daily routines and workflows of data visualization professionals.