How to Evaluate Diagrams as Sources / Janne Holmen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Holmen, Janne, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Research--Evaluation.

Research.

Charts, diagrams, etc--Research.

Charts, diagrams, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

London : SAGE Publications Ltd, 2025.

Summary:

Researchers and students have a lot of training in how to deconstruct and analyze texts, but almost none when it comes to the bias hidden in the spatial layout of diagrams. This guide will teach you how to detect the values and ideologies imbedded in the spatial dimensions of seemingly neutral diagrams. It does so with the help of theories from the cognitive sciences. We learn a common set of primary metaphors from sensorimotor experience in early childhood. Primary metaphors, such as "Power is Up," "Important is Central," and "Good is Bright/Bad is Dark," affect how we interpret diagrams emotionally. Spatial agency bias makes persons from cultures writing from left to right perceive actors placed to the left in a diagram as more powerful and active than those to the right. Complex charts that exceed the cognitive capacity of human working memory, such as complicated network diagrams, can be used to discredit the systems they are portraying. These principles are exemplified by the analysis of a diagram from an East German textbook that depicts the West German political system, which is discredited by a clever combination of primary metaphors, spatial agency bias, and overcomplexity.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-03-622166-0

9781036221669

OCLC:

1523170700