design diploma
- full title: »a model for visualizing news structures in print media«
- original German title: »Ein Modell zur Visualisierung von nachrichtlichen Strukturen in Printmedien«
- created at the University of Applied Sciences Augsburg, Faculty for Design
- completed february 2009
- support by Prof. Michael Stoll and Prof. Stefan Bufler
an example of how one edition connects to others
The media landscape of today lets there be an ever increasing demand for making complex facts more comprehensible. This interactive information graphic deals with a rather classic medium, the printed newspaper. It gives the user a view on topics as they appeared in the news. The data behind the graphic comes from manually collected information about all articles that were featured on the frontpages. Many articles are related to each other through continuations and picking up the same topic. These connections reveal the progress of individual stories. This way, long-living subjects can be distinguished from unique incidents. Furthermore, they make a declaration about how publications are built. Here, one can see differences between the newspapers. This “fingerprint” of a newspaper can be compared to another. During the study, three german newspapers — one local and two national — were evaluated over the period of one month.
example for the frontpage detail view
The graphic shows the »Augsburger Allgemeine« from november 2008. On the first dateil level, the user gets to see all editions arranged radially. Pointing out one edition reveals connections to other ones with articles on the matching topics. A click zooms in the frontpage where the articles are highlighted with distinct colors for each department. Each article's headline and additional information about its size and its number of continuations inside this issue are displayed. Where exactly the continuations of an article are located can be found out by selecting it. Navigating back is always possible through buttons on the top. A legend on the bottom explains the colors of the departments.
mockup of how one topic would connect over the whole month
The graphic is in German only since it's merely a study about one possible model for visualizing this subject matter.
Watch the video below to see how it can be used or start the application to try it for yourself (font problems may occur).
the backend with which the data was collected