Is it Data or Art? Check out these Newsworthy Visualizations from the BBC

The DataArt project takes data from the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and uses data visualisation to explore the data in a creative and informative way. In blurring the boundary between art and information, DataArt aims to reach both experts and non-experts alike to grow interest in media and global issues.

Recently, the DataArt project added an interesting new visualization they call the "Locus". Locus is a news archive visualisation that maps Guardian articles to places over time - a spatial & temporal mapping of events and media attention in the last decade. They use the Guardian Open Platform because it provides an API that can be queried by date, and an archive going back over 10 years.

Each place is represented as a geo-located dot that changes scale in proportion to that place's appearance in news articles over time. As you interact with the time slider, the circles grow and shrink, giving a picture of which locations are in the news at any given time. To see the all the news articles mapped, you can extend the time slider to the full search period.

To check out a Locus map for Iraq and Afghanistan, Click Here.

Credit: Data Art