Do emotional responses to data visualisation mobilise people to act? A case study of climate change visualisations in two national contexts

This study offers original insights into audiences’ emotional responses to data visualisations or datavis (graphs, charts and maps) and how these responses play a role in mobilising participation in two different national contexts: Poland and the United Kingdom. Understanding the role emotions play in engagements with graphic representations of data is important, because there is an increased circulation of data through visual representations in everyday life, and because emotions are vital components for making sense of data and for eliciting engagement. Despite this, sociological research has yet to explore emotional experiences of datavis and where they can lead.

This thesis focuses on climate change datavis as a case study. It uses a comparative mixed qualitative methods approach, incorporating analysis of thirteen datavis about climate change, nine semi-structured interviews with ten data visualisation professionals from six organisations who design, commission and/or disseminate data visualisations about climate change, thirty-four semi-structured interviews and thirteen follow-up interviews with diverse audience participants from the United Kingdom and Poland who responded to these data visualisations on social media.

The thesis argues that datavis can be seen as what I have called an ‘emotional repository’ of dynamic and complex emotional experiences. Datavis can trigger multiple, simultaneous, and often contradictory emotions, relating mainly to the data that is the subject of the visualisation or aesthetic form. These emotions play an important role in mobilising audiences to participate in datafied democracies, more often on an individual and daily level, and less frequently on a collective and public scale; and they do so in different ways, depending on geographical context and demographic characteristics. The study offers an original contribution to the sociology of emotions, critical data studies and the limited existing research on datavis in society.