European Values Maps: Visualization of Large Opinion Spaces

European Values Study is a large-scale, cross-national, repeated survey on basic human values. In our project, European Value Maps, we apply data analysis and visualization techniques to the EVS data to construct conceptual maps of Europe. These maps resemble geographic maps, and therefore look more more familiar to the viewers than other abstract types of data visualizations, by relying on the human familiarity with geographic maps. Here, countries represent groups of people holding similar opinions on human values. In this talk, I will present the methodology of the EVM project and invite you to reflect together on how data visualization methods can influence opinion polarization on societal topics. European Value Maps have been recently featured by UU news.