For this issue of Evidence and Influence Micro-magazine we’ve gathered a list of resources that we think will be useful for information activists. Some of these resources were used or presented at the Evidence and Influence camp; others are the favourites of activists present at the camp.
Document, expose, investigate
USA Today has published an interactive reportage on poisoning due to ghost factories. The result of a year-long investigation, the project examines the impacts of toxic contamination from factories and the government’s knowledge of the documented risks.
Here you will find a catalogue of interactive data visualisations relating to the environment from the Guardian and New York Times.
Whether you want to find, analyse or visualise data or secure yourself and your sources, the latest Tactical Tech project, Exposing the Invisible, will provide you with a wealth of inspiration and resources. Resources are frequently updated based on the recommendation of users.
Paul Radu, who facilitated the investigation track at the Evidence and Influence camp, was one of the creators of the Investigative Dashboard, a toolkit to help people learn and use follow-the-money investigative techniques. The Investigative Dashboard features list of databases containing information on companies from all over the world as well as resources to help build collaborative spaces, mine data, visualise data, and secure emails and computers. Their free-of-charge Research Desk allows journalists and activists to submit requests to professional researchers to obtain data about people or companies.
OpenCorporates is a database, which aims to help you gather information on any company in the world. Information found on OpenCorporates includes a company’s incorporation date, its registered addresses and its registry page, as well as a list of directors and officers. This can be an essential starting point for any investigation.
Me & My Shadow is a Tactical Tech project that allows you to trace your “digital shadow” – all the data you disseminate without knowing it when you are online – and then shows you how to reduce it. The website is updated frequently to keep you up to date on the newest digital privacy tools. It also features a section called “Lost in Small Print” that tells you everything you should have read before clicking on the “I agree” button when you signed up to a social network.
Flip the narrative
Italian information designer, Angella Morelli, was a facilitator at the Evidence and Influence Camp. Here she describes the making of her remarkable info-graphic detailing the concept of virtual water and how we can reduce our water consumption.
Mikel Maron, director of Ground Truth Initiative and a participant at the Evidence and Influence camp, has been working with Open Street Map since the inception of the project. Here he shares mapping how-to’s and more from his Open Street Maps diary,
Want to create your own animated info-graphic? Camp participant and animator of Tactical Tech’s ONO series has produced a tutorial that demonstrating ‘Animating Info Graphics’ in the programme After Effects.
Empowering communities
Ingrid Burrington has written up this GitHub for “quick and dirty maps” how-to workshop following conversations she had with activists at camp. For more information on GitHub and its increasing role in the Open Data Community, read Robinson Meyer’s article in The Atlantic.
Sometimes it may be useful to make a public map to share your evidence with others in a popular way. This Google Mymap video is two minutes long and teaches how to make a map and embed photos or videos.
In this how-to guide, Tactical Tech provides advice on developing a campaign strategy that starts with target and participant audiences.