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Contents
Executive Summary
Overview Report
Main Report
Bibliographic History
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Review of Visualization in the Social Sciences: Overview Report
Overview Report
Introduction
A review of visualization in the Social Sciences is not the simplest of
academic exercises to complete because there is no generally accepted
definition of either "visualization", or "social science". For the purposes of
this review we see visualization as offering "a method for seeing the unseen"
(McCormick et al., 1987) in the same spirit as the McCormick et al. (1987)
classic report. We see social sciences as being those academic subjects most
usually assigned to social science faculties in British universities:
economics, geography, politics and sociology; but for this review we also
include planning, psychology, history and social statistics.
The need for a review of visualization in the social sciences was first made
almost a decade ago:
"The
general consensus in the scientific visualization field is that a broad
commonality exists among the visual needs of all numerically intensive
sciences. ...we are keenly awaiting its applications to fields with a shorter
history in numerical computing, such as econometrics and the social sciences.
Will users from these fields find this environment appropriate to their needs?"
(Upson et al., 1989)
It is this question that this review seeks to answer.
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