A Visual Exploration of Bias in Covid-19 Coverage

During the Covid-19 pandemic, news outlets used information visualizations to convey noteworthy data about different facets of the crisis in a short period of time. Despite claims of neutrality, an information visualization also conveys bias. Exploring bias in visualizations allows us to understand the bias that some news outlets hold. I chose to explore how news outlets conveyed political bias in a visualization. In this study, using the AllSides scale, I first identified ten news outlets of varying political bias. I then collected five Covid-19 visualizations from each news outlet. I analyzed each visualization’s use of information visualization techniques and topics in order to explore the ways political bias manifests visually. It is unsurprising that I found that news outlets were concerned about Covid-19, discussing the spread and number of Covid-19 cases. News outlets were also similar in the types of colors and graphs they used. The news outlets explored the pandemic on both a national and international level. We see that the bias manifests into either accurately exploring the severity of the pandemic or downplaying the severity of the pandemic. No news outlet overstates the concern of Covid-19. By understanding how media bias manifests in information visualizations, we can further understand how to decrease these biases and truly understand what a visualization is trying to convey. Information literacy is one underused method that can help us understand bias in information visualizations. Specifically, visual literacy is essential to determining which visualizations to believe.