How well the public understands data has a major influence on the successful management of pandemics and other health crises. Data related to Covid-19 has been extremely abundant but not always well understood by citizens, sometimes resulting in confusion and/or resistance to public health measures. Improving how well data is understood is therefore critical from a public health perspective, and to the proper functioning of our democracies more generally. These are the premises on which the present project is based. Its aim is therefore to contribute to a better understanding of data in future, which can be achieved by improving data literacy (reception side) and by presenting and explaining data in ways that facilitate its understanding (production side). However, achieving higher levels of data literacy within the population - while desirable - cannot be achieved overnight. Identifying news media as playing a central role, this research project seeks to find ways of helping news media and other information producers/disseminators to improve their practices related to health crisis data, including thanks to a better understanding of audiences.

In this project data is viewed through a social constructionist lens, in that it may not be assumed to exist in a raw or pure state and is not, as such, neutral. They are the result of - and subject to - the operations of sense making carried out by various actors (including journalists) with a view to informing the public. Data are therefore inseparable from their meaning and narration (whether textual, visual, interactive, etc.). By extension, data should not only be understood from the point of view of their construction, production and even circulation, but understanding the reception side is both paramount and frequently overlooked.

Public reception, which we argue tends to be viewed as monolithic, remains a blind spot for data producers as well as for research more widely. Academia has focused much more on the creation side of data than it has on the ways in which they are then understood and interpreted variably by different audiences. The data boom during the Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated a growing phenomenon: the dissemination of erroneous information. As data’s importance in understanding the world and decision making has grown, they have increasingly become subject to distortion and manipulation from their original meaning in order to propagate false information (e.g. disinformation or statactivism) and more often for misinformation (unintentional misinterpretation), usually due to a variety of factors such as the lack of quality of the data, of expertise by news providers or of data literacy on the audience side.

On a methodological and theoretical level, this project will explore the production, dissemination and reception of data in the form of news during the pandemic, in line with systemic approaches widely used by researchers in journalism studies in recent years. It is based on a collaboration of a multidisciplinary team of researchers (journalism studies, consumer behavior, visual science and information systems) and the participation of professionals and institutions (news media, journalism training, public health institution and the Federal Statistical Office).

More concretely, our research will explore how trust in media, levels of data literacy and preexisting beliefs shape how members of the public understand and make sense of data.

The project is divided into five work packages:

+ WP1 aims to identify the key indicators and data produced by journalists during the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland as well as the evolving ways in which this data framed the health crisis.

+ WP2 will conduct qualitative case studies in view of documenting data journalistic approaches to COVID-19 data-related narratives. In particular, which representations journalists have of the data and their audiences, and how they shaped their stories to make the two fit.

+ WP3 will use the knowledge gained in WP1 to conduct controlled experiments to gain a better understanding of audience comprehension of data-related narratives, seeking ways to reduce misunderstandings and skepticism.

+ WP 4 will adopt a collaborative design science approach to create digital data-related narratives and visualizations and test them to evaluate how well they support data understanding. It will build on the observations made with journalists in WP2. Broadly, it will consider how interactive data visualizations with adequate narrative strategies could empower the audience of data-related narratives.

+ Finally, WP5 will disseminate the knowledge gained and technologies developed, notably thanks to broad-ranging partnerships, including the news media, public health authorities, journalism training institutions.

In terms of impact, this project will thus improve data-related narratives to promote better information in times of pandemic, accounting for the conditions of reception and understanding by the public and by promoting more interactive and inclusive narratives, thereby offering contributions on societal, industrial and pedagogical levels.