Tell your story and show it with data, using free and easy-to-learn tools on the web. This introductory book teaches you how to design interactive charts and customized maps for your website, beginning with simple drag-and-drop tools such as Google Sheets, Datawrapper, and Tableau Public. You'll also gradually learn how to edit open source code templates like Chart.js, Highcharts, and Leaflet on GitHub. Hands-On Data Visualization takes you step-by-step through tutorials, real-world examples, and online resources. This practical guide is ideal for students, nonprofit organizations, small business owners, local governments, journalists, academics, and anyone who wants to take data out of spreadsheets and turn it into lively interactive stories. No coding experience is required. Build interactive charts and maps and embed them in your website Understand the principles for designing effective charts and maps Learn key data visualization concepts to help you choose the right tools Convert and transform tabular and spatial data to tell your data story Edit and host Chart.js, Highcharts, and Leaflet map code templates on GitHub Learn how to detect bias in charts and maps produced by others

Did fake Twitter accounts help sway a presidential election? What can Facebook and Reddit archives tell us about human behavior? In Mining Social Media, senior BuzzFeed reporter Lam Thuy Vo shows you how to use Python and key data analysis tools to find the stories buried in social media. Whether you’re a professional journalist, an academic researcher, or a citizen investigator, you’ll learn how to use technical tools to collect and analyze data from social media sources to build compelling, data-driven stories. Learn how to: •Write Python scripts and use APIs to gather data from the social web •Download data archives and dig through them for insights •Inspect HTML downloaded from websites for useful content •Format, aggregate, sort, and filter your collected data using Google Sheets •Create data visualizations to illustrate your discoveries •Perform advanced data analysis using Python, Jupyter Notebooks, and the pandas library •Apply what you’ve learned to research topics on your own Social media is filled with thousands of hidden stories just waiting to be told. Learn to use the data-sleuthing tools that professionals use to write your own data-driven stories.