this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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Yep. You essentially summed up my point.
There's a difference between data display for academia and data display for the general public.
The general public is generally not well educated on understanding the data that's presented to them. Big change in line up or down regardless of scale means big change. It could be from 100 to 100.8, but if the scale is zoomed in then that could be presented as a +80% change.
And often is and sometimes with the axes removed and shown on the news specifically to be manipulative.
I really don't understand why I'm being downvoted above.... This was literally part of my grade school education on identifying and avoiding misinformation. And later on, around how the general public understands data visualizations. They are largely understood at a glance and taken at face value without reading the axes.
This is a easy way to push misinformation. Not by actually pushing real misinformation but by taking advantage of the general public's tendency to not read it carefully.
Which is manipulative. Which is why it's taught in some places as part of the standard educational curriculum...