Infographics and public history

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the role of infographics in public history. In the last few years, infographics have become increasingly popular both on- and offline. My aim is thus to identify best practices in order to bridge the gap between academic research and the wider public. The chapter is therefore divided into four main sections. It starts by asking what infographics are and how can we distinguish data visualisation from infographics. The next section discusses public history and infographics, identifying the main uses of infographics in the discipline. The chapter then focuses on which steps to take in order to compose an infographic for the purpose of communicating historical research to the public, including orientation, content, and software and online resources, before drawing some conclusions in the final section.