The jury consisting of Nils B Weidmann (University of Konstanz), Hanne Fjelde (Uppsala University) and Michael D Ward (Duke University) has awarded the third Journal of Peace Research Best Visualization Award to Matthew A Baum (Harvard University) and Yuri M Zhukov (University of Michigan). The prizewinning article is titled “Filtering revolution: Reporting bias in internationalnewspaper coverage of the Libyan civil war” and was published in the May special issue on ‘Communication, Technology, and Political Conflict’.
The article includes a variety of graphics to illustrate key aspects of the theory, the data used for the analysis, as well as the results. A flow chart details the two theoretical mechanisms described in the paper and the hypotheses they imply. The authors use maps and simple bar charts to show the distribution of the news coverage data. Another chart details the temporal evolution of the Libyan conflict, as well as the reporting patterns about the conflict across different regions and regime types. Last, the authors illustrate the estimates from their statistical models and the uncertainty around them using lattice plots. The jury was particularly impressed by the extremely thorough execution of the graphics in the article. The figures are created with a high level of detail, cautiously using color where necessary. The result is an article that not only impresses by its interesting analysis, but also by the large number of aesthetically pleasing and informative graphics. The award is USD 500.
