Biodiversity data as public environmental media
Citizen science projects, national databases and data visualizations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8090659 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mitchell Whitelaw (0000-0003-4714-8507, ISNI: 0000000121807477 Australian National University, corresponding author), Belinda Smaill (0000-0001-8198-992X, ISNI: 0000000419367857 Monash University) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 79-99 |
| Publication date | 2021-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Environmental Media (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2632-2463 • E-ISSN: 2632-2471 |
| Publisher | Intellect (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1386/jem_00041_1 |
| OpenAlex | W3158402528 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 12 |
Through a combination of scientific and community activity, our environment is increasingly registered and documented as data. Given the expanding breadth of this digital domain, it is crucial that scholars consider the problems it presents as well as its affirmative potential. This article, arising from collaboration between a practitioner and theorist in digital design and a film and screen scholar with expertise in documentary and environmental studies, critically examines biodiversity data through an ecocritical reading of public-facing databases, citizen science platforms and data visualizations. We examine the Atlas of Living Australia ; Canberra Nature Map ; the City of Melbourne’s Insects ; and the experimental visualization Local Kin . Integrating perspectives from screen studies, design and the environmental humanities, including multispecies studies approaches in anthropology, we examine how digital representations reflect the way biodiversity data is produced and structured. Critically analysing design choices – what is shown, and how it is shown – we argue that biodiversity data on-screen provides specific affordances: allowing, encouraging or discouraging certain insights and possibilities that condition our knowledge of and engagement with living things. An interdisciplinary approach allows us to ask new questions about how users might experience multispecies worlds in digital form, and how biodiversity data might convey the complexities of an entangled biosphere, amplifying understanding, connection and attention amongst interested publics. We examine the visual rhetorics of digital biodiversity in order to better understand how these forms operate as environmental media: designed representations of the living world
Affordance · Biodiversity · Citizen science · Data science · Digital media · Science communication · Science education · Sociology · Visualization · World Wide Web · Animal and Plant Science Education · Computer Science · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Species Distribution and Climate Change · Ecology
Worldwide decline of the entomofauna
The current state of citizen science as a tool for ecological research and public engagement
Theorizing Affordances
Making and unmaking bodies
Biodiversity data as public environmental media
Make kin, not cities! Multispecies entanglements and 'becoming-world' in planning theory
Nonhuman Charisma
Involutionary Momentum
The Aesthetics of Environmental Visualizations
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,4 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |