Selected Academic Writing

This is me on Google Scholar.

My published work is very multidisciplinary, crossing between media studies, information visualization, critical algorithm studies, cybersecurity, data journalism, design studies, digital arts, gender studies, and human-computer interaction.

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“Iceberg Sensemaking: A Process Model for Critical Data Analysis and Visualization” (IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2024).

“Knowing Together: An Experiment in Collaborative Photogrammetry” (ACM SIGGRAPH / Leonardo, 2019).

“Walter Benjamin and the Question of Print in Media History” (Journal of Communication Inquiry, 2017).

“Guide to SecureDrop: An Emerging Platform for Secure and Anonymous Communication in Newsrooms” (Tow Center for Digital Journalism, 2016).

“Teaching Data and Computational Journalism” (Knight Foundation, 2016).

Full Academic Publication List

Berret and Munzner. “Iceberg Sensemaking: A Process Model for Critical Data Analysis and Visualization”
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2024.
Abstract: We offer a new model of the sensemaking process for data science and visual analytics. Whereas past sensemaking models have been built on theoretical foundations in cognitivism and positivism, this model adopts interpretivist foundations in order to reframe data sensemaking in humanistic terms. We identify five key principles centered on the concept of schemas: Tacit and Explicit Schemas, Schemas First and Always, Data as a Schematic Artifact, Schematic Multiplicity, and Sensemaking Over Time. Our model uses the analogy of an iceberg, where data is the visible tip of the schema underneath it. The analysis process iteratively refines both the data and its schema in tandem. We compare the roles of schemas in past sensemaking models and draw conceptual distinctions based on a historical review of schemas in different philosophical traditions. We validate the descriptive, predictive, and explanatory power of our model through four analysis scenarios: uncovering data injustice, investigating official data, teaching data wrangling, and producing data mashups.

Berret and Yu. “The Lifespan of Ephemera: Reflections on Collaborative Art and the Embodiment of Data.”
Book Chapter published by Linköping University Press, July 2024.
Abstract: This chapter offers a retrospective account of a collaborative art project performed at Columbia University and later exhibited in New York and Los Angeles. The project showcased a novel imaging technique called collaborative photogrammetry, which was employed for the first time during a workshop involving 35 participants. Both this workshop and the exhibition that followed were collaborative efforts with a dedicated group of creative technologists at Columbia. This project is used as a lens to discuss issues surrounding collaboration between scholars, artists, and cultural institutions.

Berret. “The Drawbridge Model of Cryptographic Communication.”
SocArXiV preprint posted March 19, 2024.
Abstract: This article introduces a theory and model of cryptographic communication that treats conditions of communication failure as the basis for different types of information security. Building on the metaphor that communication is a bridge when it succeeds and a chasm when it fails, cryptography serves as a kind of drawbridge to limit the audience of a message through selective communication failure. Different forms of cryptographic mediation are thus framed as arts of privation that selectively limit and divide an audience. This theoretical framework is illustrated using a model with a series of drawbridges representing distinct sources of communication failure, each of which induces distinct limits or privations depending on the manner and conditions of failure. The model’s descriptive, explanatory, and diagnostic power are illustrated through various examples in which distinct forms of communication failure are used to facilitate conditions of privileged discourse and dialogue by narrowing the dissemination of communication.

Kasica, Berret, and Munzner. “Dirty Data in the Newsroom: Comparing Data Preparation in Journalism and Data Science.”
ACM Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) conference paper presented April 25, 2023.
Abstract: The work involved in gathering, wrangling, cleaning, and otherwise preparing data for analysis is often the most time consuming and tedious aspect of data work. Although many studies describe data preparation within the context of data science workflows, there has been little research on data preparation in data journalism. We address this gap with a hybrid form of thematic analysis that combines deductive codes derived from existing accounts of data science workflows and inductive codes arising from an interview study with 36 professional data journalists. We extend a previous model of data science work to incorporate detailed activities of data preparation. We synthesize 60 dirty data issues from 16 taxonomies on dirty data and our interview data, and we provide a novel taxonomy to characterize these dirty data issues as discrepancies between mental models. We also identify four challenges faced by journalists: diachronic, regional, fragmented, and disparate data sources.

Berret. “If Communication is a Bridge, Cryptography is a Drawbridge: A Stage-Based Model of Communication Processes” (ICA 2022)
International Communication Association (ICA) conference paper presented April 24, 2022.
Abstract: This paper offers a model of communication based on the conditions of its success and failure. Building on Peters’ metaphor of communication as both a bridge and a chasm, the model depicts cryptography as a drawbridge to selectively choose the audience of a message. The model forms a set of islands linked by a series of drawbridges, each representing a source of communication’s success or failure, and each of which must be passed in sequence. The first drawbridge is recognition, in which the most basic source of failed communication is to be unaware that a message is even present. The next is access, in which some form of barrier or lack of authorization keeps one from accessing a message. Next is legibility, the ability to recognize individual symbols, followed by intelligibility, the recognition of coherent patterns, words, and syntax in those symbols. The final two stages of this model concern different stages of meaning. The public meaning of a message is the literal, surface sense intended to be understood without insinuation or ambiguity. The private meaning of a message is either selectively encoded for a specific audience, or else fully interior to our own minds. The descriptive and explanatory power of this model is illustrated through various examples in which communication is secret, secure, and otherwise selective of its audience.

Kasica, Berret, and Munzner. “Table Scraps: An Actionable Framework for Multi-Table Data Wrangling From An Artifact Study of Computational Journalism.” IEEE TVCG Proc. InfoVis.
IEEE Visualization and Visual Analytics (VIS) conference proceedings published September 22, 2020.
Abstract: For the many journalists who use data and computation to report the news, data wrangling is an integral part of their work. Despite an abundance of literature on data wrangling in the context of enterprise data analysis, little is known about the specific operations, processes, and pain points journalists encounter while performing this tedious, time-consuming task. To better understand the needs of this user group, we conduct a technical observation study of 50 public repositories of data and analysis code authored by 33 professional journalists at 26 news organizations. We develop two detailed and cross-cutting taxonomies of data wrangling in computational journalism, for actions and for processes. We observe the extensive use of multiple tables, a notable gap in previous wrangling analyses. We develop a concise, actionable framework for general multi-table data wrangling that includes wrangling operations documented in our taxonomy that are without clear parallels in other work. This framework, the first to incorporate tables as first-class objects, will support future interactive wrangling tools for both computational journalism and general-purpose use. We assess the generative and descriptive power of our framework through discussion of its relationship to our set of taxonomies.

Yu and Berret. “Knowing Together: An Experiment in Collaborative Photogrammetry.” Leonardo.
ACM SIGGRAPH presentation and Leonardo article published September 1, 2019.
Abstract: Knowing Together is a collection of sculptures designed to explore collaborative techniques for capturing three-dimensional images. Thirty-five participants collectively created these images by forming circles and passing a camera around. These images were stitched together to form 3D models whose distortions are preserved as artifacts attesting to their creation process, suggesting novel approaches to photogrammetry that do not treat photorealism as its ideal quality.

Berret. “Walter Benjamin and the Question of Print in Media History.” Journal of Communication Inquiry.”
Journal of Communication Inquiry article published September 29, 2017.
Abstract: Although Walter Benjamin’s ‘‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’’ is a seminal essay in the study of media history, the work itself gives a surprisingly brief account of a core subject: the printing press. Books and literature present only a special case of mechanical reproduction, according to Benjamin, but the implications of this point remain largely unexplored. The purpose of this essay is to ask why Benjamin would have considered print to be different or less historically consequential compared to photography and cinema when the revolutionary potential he ascribes to these more recent technologies is also prefigured in his other writings on books and literature. To critically approach this question helps to create a sharper picture of what matters to Benjamin about new media and also points to figures like Georg Lukacs who influenced Benjamin’s account of technology and art. Ultimately, this line of questioning also raises concerns about the place of the ‘‘Work of Art’’ essay in the general study of media history, a field in which the signal error is to treat new media as unprecedented developments.

Berret. “Guide to SecureDrop: An Emerging Platform for Secure and Anonymous Communication in Newsrooms.”
Tow Center for Digital Journalism report published May 12, 2016.
Abstract: This report offers a guide to the use and significance of SecureDrop, an in-house system for news organizations to securely communicate with anonymous sources and receive documents over the Internet. Through interviews with the technologists who conceived and developed SecureDrop, as well as the journalists presently using it, this study offers a novel account of the concerns that drive the need for such a system, as well as the practices that emerge when a news organization integrates this tool into its news gathering routines.

Berret and Phillips. “Teaching Data and Computational Journalism.”
Knight Foundation report published March 14, 2016.
Abstract: Journalism schools have developed solid foundations for teaching shoe-leather reporting techniques, but the practice of data journalism has been largely left out of the mainstream of journalism education, even as the field’s relatively small core of devotees has honed it into a powerful and dynamic area of practice. This report offers a snapshot of the state of data journalism education in the United States and outlines models for both integrating the use of data journalism into existing academic programs and establishing new degrees that specialize in data-driven and computational reporting practices. We interviewed more than 50 journalists, educators, and students, and we evaluated more than 100 journalism programs across the nation. This report features a chapter detailing quantitative findings, such as the number of U.S. journalism programs offering classes in data, computation, and related tech skills. We also include a chapter of qualitative findings in which our interviews and classroom observations offer some color and texture to this picture of the present state of data journalism education and its potential. This report is meant to describe the state of data journalism education, to underline the urgency of incorporating these skills to equip the next generation of reporters, and to offer guidelines for moving journalism schools in this direction.

Brideau and Berret. “A Brief Introduction to Impact: ‘The Meme Font’
Journal of Visual Culture article published December 19, 2014.
Abstract: If you  have ever seen an image meme on the internet, you’ve seen Impact, a typeface so commonly used that it could be called ‘the meme font’. Its ubiquity is largely overlooked, yet Impact contributes significantly to the common structure of memes, and examining its history raises productive questions about creativity and the balance of replication and variation in memes more generally. This article is a brief introduction to Impact – its design and its history – as it relates not only to the contemporary practice of digital typography, but also to the development of standards for operating systems and the web. Impact, like internet memes in themself, tells a story of both standardization and innovation. This typeface had lain largely dormant for decades after its design, but today it ensures its own proliferation through a fixed role in the production of memes seen everywhere.

Berret. “Sensors and Sensibilia.”
Chapter in Tow Center Report on “Sensor Journalism” published May 2014.
No abstract.