Popcorn and Politics

Popcorn and Politics

New York Times Data Visualization by Aaron Druck and Ramsey Nasser

Concepts

•  Reveal how your money flows from a movie ticket to a 2008 Political Candidate

•  Connection between films and politicians •  Media bias •  Transparency

Popcorn & Politics: Concept

Popcorn & Politics: Research

The Story

Popcorn & Politics: Concept

Specifically a movie (producers)

Audience

Popcorn & Politics: Domains

•  Consumers •  Voters •  Politicians •  Moviegoers •  Producers

Design Question

•  Where does your money go when you buy a movie ticket?

•  Is the film industry left-leaning in support?

•  Is there a connection between the film industry and political machine?

•  Is Campaign Finance Reform effective?

Popcorn & Politics: Research

Precedents

•  Napolean’s March •  CEO Politics •  Fundrace 2008 •  TheyRule •  MovieCharts

Popcorn & Politics: Research

March of Napolean’s troops to Moscow 1861

Popcorn & Politics: Research

CEO Politics

h"p://www.ceocampaigncontribu4ons.info/  Popcorn & Politics: Research

Fundrace 2008

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/

Popcorn & Politics: Research

TheyRule

h"p://www.theyrule.net/  

Popcorn & Politics: Research

MovieCharts

http://www.xach.com/moviecharts/2008.html

Popcorn & Politics: Research

Visualization Concepts

•  Bars/lines •  Network •  Minimal/simple •  Clean •  Essentialist

Popcorn & Politics: Research

Edward Tufte

•  More data, less data ink •  No legend •  No grid •  Chart junk

Popcorn & Politics: Research

Process

•  Find relationship in data •  Build local database by pooling multiple

data sources •  Visualize the data •  Tell compelling, relevant story

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Process: The Data

Movies > Producers > Donations > Candidates

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Why Producers?

•  "Producers seldom have a set salary, because they get a percentage of a show's earnings or ticket sales.” - Dept of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Database (XML)

•  Movie (The Dark Knight) – Producer (John Doe)

•  Candidate (Barack Obama) •  Donation ($500)

– Producer (Jane Smith) •  Candidate (John McCain) •  Donation ($2300)

•  http://api.popcornandpolitics.com/movies/Hancock

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Technology

•  SQLite - Database •  Ruby – Scraping scripts/backend/API •  Flex/MXML- v1.0 •  Flash/AS3 – v2.0

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Prototype I

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Prototype 2

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Prototype 3

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Popcorn & Politics v1.0

Popcorn & Politics: Process

2nd round of sketches

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Final Revisions

•  Sankey Graphs

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Final Revisions

•  Popcorn and Politics Sankey

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Final Revisions

•  Crisp •  Minimal •  One-view •  Tufte

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Popcorn & Politics v2.0

•  “Tortilla Heaven” > producer Gilbert Dumontet > $500 to Giuliani and $250 to Richardson •  “One Missed Call” > producer Broderick Johnson > $2300 to Obama •  “Rambo” > producer George Furla > $2300 to McCain

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Popcorn & Politics v2.1

Popcorn & Politics: Process

Conclusion

-  Obama received a lot of donations. -  “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry”

donated to McCain. -  Supreme Court ruling rejecting limits on

corporate spending on political campaigns

Next Steps

•  P&P as a tool •  Possibly release Sankey library •  Optimize public API •  Create large PDF prints of graphs

Thank you!

http://www.popcornandpolitics.com

Ramsey Nasser http://www.ramseynasser.com

Aaron Druck http://a.parsons.edu/~druca992/blog/