A Crisis in Numbers: data visualisations in the coverage of the 2015 European refugee crisis.

Notes for talk given for the Interactive Design Institute in London, October 2nd.

A few years ago I did a study on data journalism in UK newspapers. This grew out of work I had done in training students and journalists in data analysis and visualisation techniques. In that paper I discussed the varying approaches and techniques used in data journalism in print, and looked at developing a mechanism for measuring data journalism. (Knight, 2015)
I was asked to speak today based on this paper. I tend to get frustrated with work once it has been published, and get rather into the “never want to see or think about that again” mode, so I suggested a different title: A Crisis in Numbers: data visualisations in the coverage of the 2015 European refugee crisis. I suggested that because it was early August, and the news media had been full of the crisis, and there was a wide range of data analysis and visualisations evident in the media at that time.
I began collecting examples, but I confess it wasn’t intended as a definitive or comprehensive analysis, so I have not been as thorough as I was in the previous study. I also began to be more interested in the kinds of ideas or stories that were being represented in the visualisations, rather than the specifics and technicalities of the actual images and presentation. I ended up focusing only on a handful of publications – The Economist and New York Times were the richest sources, the Guardian and Telegraph offered some data, and I found very little else.
Based on a rough and instinctive analysis, I have extracted some themes that are evident in the examples I have. Again, this is rough, part of the process of developing ideas around analysing data journalism.
Origins:
Although the events of this summer are commonly referred to as the “Syrian refugee crisis”, it is clear that the refugees leaving the Mediterranean come from a wide range of countries, not only from Syria. A handful of visualisations looked at the origins of the refugees, but surprisingly, this was quite limited. One of them was based on year-old data, and somewhat misleading given the context of the story.

(Swidlicki, 2015)
The only other visualisation showing origin was part of a much larger piece, showing overall patterns in refugee migration globally. This was a more comprehensive image which showed origins and destinations of refugees globally. Although the image is striking, it’s not readily comprehensible.

(Peçanha and Wallace, 2015)
Routes:
The route refugees take from their country of origin to their final destination was a more widely reported aspect of the story – given that teh majority of refugees where coming through Eastern and Southern Europe, but aiming to get to Northern and Western Europe, this journey , and obstacles along it were a key aspect of the story.

(“Time to go,” 2015)
The Economist’s map showing routes, entry points and way stations gives a good sense of the momentum of travel, and some of the border controls and areas that affected desired routes and destinations.

(Boehler and Peçanha, 2015)
The New York Times’ map shows one area in more detail, has more of a narrative feel to it. It’s telling the story with detail to flesh it out, rather than explaining the context and impact.
Incidents and Deaths: 

(Jeffery et al., 2015)
The Guardians’ map of incidents along the route doesn’t show destinations, strictly speaking (it assumes one knows the context), but highlights specific events. Again, this is the use of a visualisation to identify and clarify a narrative, rather than illuminate or explain a phenomenon.

(Boehler and Peçanha, 2015)

The New York Times map of the Mediterranean, showing sinkings and deaths is a much starker indication of one aspect of the crisis, although it lacks the context of time.

(“Death at sea,” n.d.)
The Economist’s approach to similar (if not identical) data is a much more straightforward line graph which gives a far better sense of the scale of the crisis.
Destinations:
By far the largest proportion of the material shown focused on destinations of migrants, especially within Europe. Both the Economist and New York Times produced maps showing the impact of Syrian refugees on neighbouring countries. The Economist is not clear, but these two maps seem to based on the same data on the base map. The Economist has complicated and confused the map somewhat with more dimensions and a graded colour key.

(“Time to go,” 2015)

(Boehler and Peçanha, 2015)

The Economist also produced a complex (but more readable) visualisation showing the destinations of Syrian refugees and the proportion of the receiving countries’ population they represent.
Both this visualisation and the two previous ones clearly show that Syria itself, and neighbouring countries are bearing far more of the burden of the problem than even highly-affected European countries like Austria and Italy.

The New York Times visualisation of the overall destinations of refugees, although it shows the local effect, tends to emphasise the impact on North America and Northern and Western Europe simply by the way the eye is drawn to the longer lines and dramatic sweeps.

(Boehler and Peçanha, 2015)

The Guardian opted for a much simpler visualisation which initially seems based on a treemap, but has some variation. What it does show well is the relative size of the refugee populations, and the impact of that within each country.

(Jeffery et al., 2015)
The Telegraph focused on a handful of countries, showing relative numbers of asylum applications.

(Holehouse, 2015a)
Fairness and quotas:

The issue of fairness, of whether the world was dividing up the burden equally became a dominant narrative of the discussion towards the end of August. A number of visualisations were developed that looked at this issue.
The Telegraph had a simple graph showing the size of the quota for each country:

(Holehouse, 2015b)
They also showed bubbles showing the relative size, with details of where the refugees were currently residing.

(Holehouse, 2015b)

The Guardian showed both numbers and proportion of population.

(Jeffery et al., 2015)
The issue of whether countries would take more or fewer if the quotas went ahead was also presented. The NYT’s map highlights some of the differences in Europe.

(Boehler and Peçanha, 2015)
The same data was used to show the specifics of how much under and over quota countries were:

(Boehler and Peçanha, 2015)
The New York Times also chose to look at GDP as well as size and number of refugees, and produced this:

(Boehler and Peçanha, 2015)
Final comments:
There were some issues that were clear on observation. The timeframe of data was never clear, and given that this is not a single event, but a surge in an ongoing movement, this is really problematic.
None of the visualisations clarified what was meant by refugees or migrants, and several were unclear on the data’s origins, making it hard to verify.
Overall, the Guardian was a disappointment (what happened to the Guardian’s data team and blog?), the Telegraph was limited and simplistic, the Economist complicated and in-depth and the New York Times both nuanced and visually powerful (although the spot colour orange and purple was a bit much after a while).

References:
Boehler, P., Peçanha, S., 2015. The Global Refugee Crisis, Region by Region. N. Y. Times.
Death at sea, n.d. . The Economist.
Holehouse, M., 2015a. Britain faces £150m cost for EU migrant crisis.
Holehouse, M., 2015b. EU quota plan forced through against eastern European states’ wishes.
Jeffery, S., Scruton, P., Fenn, C., Torpey, P., Levett, C., Gutiérrez, P., Jeffery, S., Scruton, P., Fenn, C., Torpey, P., Levett, C., Gutiérrez, P., 2015. Europe’s refugee crisis – a visual guide. The Guardian.
Knight, M., 2015. Data journalism in the UK: a preliminary analysis of form and content. J. Media Pract. 16, 55–72. doi:10.1080/14682753.2015.1015801
Peçanha, S., Wallace, T., 2015. The Flight of Refugees Around the Globe. N. Y. Times.
Swidlicki, P., 2015. This East-West split over EU refugee quotas will have long-lasting consequences.
Time to go, 2015. . The Economist.