information aesthetics.
a visualization of the political debates in the U.S. elections. each line represents a reference from one candidate to another, while the length of each circle segment represents the total words spoken by each candidate during the debates.
one interesting pattern are candidates who are only referred to within-party versus those who are mentioned by the opposing party.
[link: nytimes.com|via visualmethods.blogspot.com]
see also: Matthew Ericson InfoVis keynote, state of the union infographics & visual poetry 2006.
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The graphic was also paired with a second set of charts showing the words used in the debates.
thanks, j.
sorry I missed that!
Where's Dr. Ron Paul in all this? He's a Republican candidate, and I think he spends more time talking about issues than his opponents, same as Hillary Clinton.
If only they supplied historical versions from the most recent presidential elections. it would be intriguing to see whether there are any correlations b/w the nyt "metrics" and election results. I would guess not, b/c it's all a PR endeavor and speeches don't reflect that (at least directly).
My December 18 blog take on these visualizations is at http://intelligententerprise.com/blog/archives/2007/12/campaign_visual.html
and I cover some other campaign visualizations at http://www.intelligententerprise.com/blog/archives/2007/12/campaign_visual_1.html
I really loved this graphic when I first saw it but then I tried to work out something meaningful that it was representing and failed.
Comparing cross-party and intra-party comments is one possibility but surely something simpler (like a bar chart!) would show that better.
It is still pretty though.
Re: Nigels comments
Something meaningful? You don't find it interesting to see who is engaging, namechecking or ignoring who in debates?
I think it is fascinating. Perhaps they could have qualified these references somehow? For the record I love this mapping of "very small scale offline conversations" ;)
I really loved this graphic when I first saw it but then I tried to work out something meaningful that it was representing and failed.
Comparing cross-party and intra-party comments is one possibility but surely something simpler (like a bar chart!) would show that better.
It is still pretty though.
I completely agree with all that here is told