Analysis of a visual essay from The Pudding
The physical traits that define men & women in literature
While starting to explore interactivity within journalistic writing, I came across a visual essay on the physical traits that define men & women in literature.
In the essay, the author makes effective use of interactivity to illustrate the concepts described in the story.
From the start, the reader is given a sense of place, with rich illustrations taking them first into the world of a book, and then the world of the narrator as they are researching the article.
Adding to this effect is the fact that the author is both the speaking subject and the subject of speech. She acts as a first-person narrator.
It it clear that the page has been optimised to work on screens of various sizes, providing the reader with a degree of control over how the content can be consumed.
The article contains elements of both transmissional and conversational interactivity. While scrolling through the page, the reader is presented with various interactive elements.
The first of these elements is a game, which consists of a collection of descriptions of physical attributes taken from actual books. The person playing the game is challenged to guess whether these descriptions refer to a man or a woman.
Further along on the page, a graphic is introduced. The graphic shows whether various body parts are more likely to be referenced when describing a man versus a woman. The reader can get extra information by hovering or clicking (for mobile) on the different body parts.
Does it work?
The rich illustrations and first-person narration work really well for this article. Various dimensions of interactivity are cleverly employed to draw the reader into the story.
For example, the game is equally simple and effective in communicating the idea that we, as readers, expect men and women to be described in a certain way. By playing the game we are challenged to think about our own mental models.
In my own work, I am particularly interested in exploring this concept of conversational interactivity. It is perhaps less common in journalism than transmissional and consultational forms, but therefore not less valuable. It might allow audiences to engage with their own preconceptions in a media environment that is increasingly polarised.
