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Visual Trumpery: How to Fight Against Fake Data and Visualizations—From the Left and From the Right

February 13, 2018

“Visual Trumpery: How to Fight Against Fake Data and Visualizations—From the Left and From the Right” is a lecture by Alberto Cairo, the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the School of Communication of the University of Miami. 

Free and open to the public, “Visual Trumpery” takes place on Friday, Feb. 16, from 3:30–5:30 p.m. at Bryn Mawr College, Dalton Hall, Room 300. Dalton Hall is located at 230 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr, Pa., 19086. Register online. Registration is required.

About the event:

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 nonpartisan talk focuses on the visual—examining misleading charts, graphs, and data maps designed by individuals and organizations from all over the political spectrum. These examples will be used to instill a solid understanding of “graphicacy,” a term used to refer to visual literacy. Cairo believes a literate, numerate, and graphicate citizenry is the best antidote for a world where, in his view, trumpery runs rampant.

About the speaker:

Alberto Cairo is the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami. Cairo has two decades of experience as an infographics and data  visualization journalist and designer. He has led visualization teams in Spain, Brazil, and the United States. Cairo teaches visualization at the University of Miami and has worked as a consultant for companies, media, organizations, and educational institutions in over 20 countries. Cairo  is the author of two books: The Functional Art-An Introduction to Information Graphics & Visualization (2012), and The Truthful Art-Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication (2016). 

This event is sponsored by the Department of Computer Science at Bryn Mawr College and the Center for Science of Information, a National Science Foundation Science & Technology Center.