6 - Data Bounds Are Emotive

Summary

Whereas the previous three chapters have focused on the relationship between quantitative realism and data bounds in general terms, Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 circle back to the Trade-Off data bound introduced in Chapter 2. This chapter focuses on a data visualization that came to visually represent Trade-Off: the graph showing the number of cases, hospitalizations or deaths per day across the entire pandemic. This ‘humped’ graph – capturing how cases rose and fell across 2020 – provides a way into a discussion about the affective qualities of data visualizations – and by extension, the emotive nature of data bounds themselves. It does so by tracing the story of a particular performance of this graph by a Sky News presenter.

On 11 November 2020, the UK passed the grim landmark of 50,000 deaths within 28 days of a positive test for coronavirus. Later that day, Sky News released a two-and-a-half minute video on YouTube titled ‘COVID-19: How did the UK get to 50,000 deaths?’. The broadcast was relatively simple: a journalist, Roland Manthorpe, stands in front of a large screen containing a succession of data visualizations. He begins on the right of the screen, moves to the left part way through and then comes back to the right again – all the while expressively using his hands, posture and voice to provide his interpretation of the changing images behind him. Nothing about the components of this clip is particularly unusual – presenters will often stand next to, or in front of, a data visualization and explain it to the public.

But it was how Manthorpe performed that underpinned most of the comments below the video. One comment by Jake Jabz read: ‘Why is he so animated, he's talking about deaths in the UK like he's a presenter on Blue Peter’ (Sky News, 2020c).

For Jake Jabz there was too much animation for the severity of death, and this resulted in a performance closer to children's television (Blue Peter) than a serious news broadcast. And there is something true in this comment – the first time I saw this clip, I was struck by the oddness of Manthorpe's approach to telling this data story. It all felt a bit too energetic, lively and affective for graphs about deaths.