Dutch version: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/embed/2024/10/04/1-jaar-oorlog-hamas-israel-in-bloedrode-cijfers
English version: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2024/gaza-numbers-killed-displaced-scale
The Belgian article was based on a publication of The Washington Post that is unfortunately behind paywall. I therefore had to include this link that is open access. However, I will do my best to explain as good as possible.
The first dot presents you.
It then continues to show you how an average European network consists of 500 people. This represents your family, friends and acquaintances.
After one year of war: 9 of those people would be dead.
Of those 9 victims: 3 are children.
Of those 9 victims: 2 would be women.
2 people are missing or lie under rubble.
Almost nobody has enough to eat.
421 have had to leave their homes.
4 children are unaccompanied or have been separated from their family.
This article visualizes data from the Hamas-Israel war. The visualization is basic yet powerful. The journalists start from an interesting perspective: ‘what if Gaza was your home?’ How many of your friends, family and acquaintances would have been impacted. As a European, it is often difficult to understand a conflict that is happening far away, but visualizing the data from this perspective brings it close to home.
This article is a perfect example that data visualization doesn’t have to be big and eccentric. A very simple visualization can tell a very powerful story that people will remember. They could have published the absolute numbers in very nice graphs, but that doesn’t touch the reader in the same way. Converting the numbers to fit a European social network is a great example of thinking outside the box.
I also like you how you scroll through the different graphs. When you scroll to the next graph, the previous one disappears. You can therefore focus on one at a time and fully absorb the information.
They are also very transparent about the data. At the end of the article they critically analyse the numbers they used, going into detail on where they found the data, when it was compiled and how they used it.