Home » ‘Visual “Trumpery” and the fight against fake data and visualizations’

‘Visual “Trumpery” and the fight against fake data and visualizations’

Date/Time
Date(s) - 14/06/2018
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Categories No Categories


Delivered by Alberto Cairo, Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami.

About the talk
The English word “trumpery” means worthless nonsense, something that is showy and deceitful at the same time. Trumpery can occur in text, verbally, or visually. This non-partisan talk focuses on the visual, examining misleading charts, graphs, and data maps designed by individuals and organizations from across the political spectrum. With facts and truth increasingly under assault, many interest groups have enlisted data visualization to support all manner of spin. Because digital images and graphics are inherently sharable and can quickly amplify messages, sifting through the visual information and misinformation is more critical than ever. I’ll seek to equip you with a solid understanding of “graphicacy,” the term I use to refer to visual literacy. I believe a literate, numerate, and graphicate citizenry is the best antidote for a world where trumpery runs rampant.

The talk will be chaired by James Cheshire and run from 18:00 to 19:00. It will be followed by a drinks reception.

This event is running in conjunction with an information evening about the UCL Geography MSc in Geospatial Analysis. If you would like to know more, click here.

About the speaker
Alberto Cairo is the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami. He’s also the director of the visualization program at UM’s Center for Computational Science. Cairo has been a director of infographics and multimedia at news publications in Spain (El Mundo, 2000-2005) and Brazil (Editora Globo, 2010-2012,) and a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Besides teaching at UM, he works as a freelancer and permanent consultant for companies like Google and Microsoft. He’s the author of the books The Functional Art: An Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization (2012) and The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication


The Consumer Data Research Centre and the UCL Q-Step Programme

This event is supported by the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC), which creates, supplies and maintains data for a wide range of users. We work with private and public data suppliers to ensure efficient, effective and safe use of consumer data in social science. The CDRC are funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and is a cross university initiative between the University College London (UCL), University of Oxford, University of Liverpool and the University of Leeds.

Q-Step is a £19.5 million programme designed to promote a step-change in quantitative social science training in the UK. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation, ESRC and HEFCE, Q-Step was developed as a strategic response to the shortage of quantitatively-skilled social science graduates. Four academic departments contribute to UCL’s Q-Step Centre offering state of the art training in quantitative research methods, data analysis and visualization.