Infographics are an integral part of conveying information within our society and so it is important to know how Infographics can potentially be misleading. From the reading on Infographics, the author explains how charts can lie, and how "even if the original data is good, your graphical representation of the data may not be" (11). Below are two graphs taken from different FOX News broadcasts which show extremely misleading information:
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| Figure 1 : Misleading Cost of Gas |
In Figure 1, we can see how the bottom scale of the graph jumps from last year, to last week, to current. This is by no means an accurate time-frame to make a line graph out of, and so while the graph shows an increase in the cost of gas over time, it really isn't saying anything meaningful in terms of statistical data. Perhaps "last week" had particularly high gas prices, and "current" could mean literally anything from one week later to years later. Not only this, but the Y axis only measures 10 cents per line, making a small increase appear to be a huge jump when it's really not.
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| Figure 2: Misleading Unemployment Rates |
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| Figure 3: Unemployment Rates with Indicator lines |
In Figures 2 and 3, you can see directly with the added lines how the data is not portrayed correctly on the graph, as 8.6% is literally adjacent to 9.0%. In all of these graphs, the creator is manipulating the Y axis to make the change seem more significant than it actually is.
Prompt 1: Misleading Infographics are still a big problem in society, so for discussion, can you find any other examples of ways in which Infographics are being used to portray skewed or false information? In what other ways might Infographics be particularly harmful and/or helpful to society? Could Fox News be misrepresenting the data to promote a certain political ideology?
The Guerrilla Girls is a movement composed of female artists who fight for equality in the art world. Often, the posters they create are meant to incite a certain political or social ideaology pertaining to the status of female artists in a largely patriarchal society. From the reading on Guerrilla Girls, “The famous query by feminist artists and art historians goes, ‘Why haven’t there been more great women artists throughout Western history?’ The Guerrilla Girls want to restate the question: ‘Why haven’t more women been considered great artists throughout Western History?” Below are two Guerrilla Girl images.
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| Figure 4 - Michele Bachmann |
In Figure 4, we see an image of Michele Bachmann with a caption that reads, “Even Michele Bachmann believes we all have the same civil rights” with an equal sign covering her mouth. The overall message seems to be calling for an equality that the person on the poster claims to exist, that clearly doesn’t.
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| Figure 5 - Guerilla Girl |
Figure 5 shows a picture of a nude model wearing a gorilla mask. The caption suggests that women artists are under-appreciated and yet a vast majority of art depicting the naked human body are of women. The implication is then that even in the art world, women are seen as objects in a patriarchal society, something that the Guerrilla Girls aspire to change
Prompt 2: In Figure 4, what do you see as the overall message? Do you think there is something oppressive about the “equal” sign and where it is situated in the image, and if so do you think that it creates something contradictory? In other words, is the implication of “shutting out” Michele Bachmann contradictory of equality in sense of free speech? Feel free to share any other examples images that seem to incite messages of equality, specifically in terms of gender.
