Too sexy for its own good? Ebb and Flow At the Box Office

I’m sad that I missed this graphic when it was in print, and I’m really enjoying the insightful discussion — but I wonder if some of the criticism isn’t founded on assumptions that bear a bit of examination themselves…

I’d like to pause with the “Where’s the story?” comment. Clearly, the vast majority of journalistic infographics must make a clear and incisive point; having worked in daily journalism as a writer and artist for 18 years, this makes perfect sense, and our readers are often best served when we start by focusing on our “nut graph.”

But is that the only use for infographics? Clearly, the explosion of encylopediac infographic newspaper pages starting in the late 1980s would say otherwise: What is the point of the two-page graphics for every new sports stadium built? To show people the facility (and we’ll leave aside for now any discussion of the value and proliferation of 3d stadium models). But is there “a journalistic angle” beyond that? How would we summarize the stories of these graphics? They’re not as straightforward as most journalistic graphics, but the value of the approach is to give readers an explanatory visualization.

Similarly, I think the value of graphics like the one we’re talking about here is that they allow people to explore information that would otherwise be utterly opaque and boring to all but the most dedicated spreadsheet addicts. Your point that the streamgraph is less correct for each individual movie’s data is entirely valid — but is that the point of this visualization?

I think not. Each mode of visualization foregrounds specific aspects of the data, even as it masks others. The streamgraph approach masks the granularity of individual movies’ box office receipts, but gives us an elegant and engaging overview of the rhythms and patterns evident only in an “Apollo’s eye” view of EVERYthing that’s happening.

Looking at this, I am able to see and understand things about (1) the Hollywood movie industry, (2) the moviegoing public, (3) the economics of the film industry, (4) the social and economic value of Oscars, (5) the seasonal rhythms and how they’re reflected in movie content — and this is impressive. I can’t think of another approach that would make available to me this kind of depth, richness, and complexity in a way that is half as engaging.

But what I love most about this approach (and yes this graphic) is that it refuses to compromise: Rather than cutting information to make this simpler or “easier,” Amanda and Lee have organized, correlated, structured and presented complex data in a way that honors both the data integrity and that of the reader.

Nice work.