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Echoes of Empire: A Data Story Told Through Headlines
🌍 Inspiration I grew up seeing how stories about Africa were often told through someone else’s lens—framed with pity, conflict, or exoticism. These narratives weren’t just outdated; they were damaging. I wanted to build something that could turn those whispers of bias into visible patterns. Echoes of Media was born from a desire to reclaim the narrative and empower others to see the bias hidden in plain sight.
📊 What it does Echoes of Media is a dashboard that analyzes how colonial narratives still echo in today’s media. It compares historical and modern headlines, visualizes bias types, and maps sentiment across regions. It also includes user feedback from workshops and surveys, making it both analytical and community-driven.
🛠️ How we built it Data Collection: I sourced headlines using NewsAPI, gathered historical samples from archives, and ran sentiment analysis using TextBlob.
Data Structuring: I organized everything in Excel and exported CSV files with clean headers and filters.
Visualization: Using Plotly Cloud, I built interactive charts—bar graphs, word clouds, sentiment maps, and comparison tables.
Design Focus: Accessibility, clarity, and storytelling were key. I used filters for country, source, tone, and topic to make the dashboard intuitive.
🚧 Challenges we ran into Finding balanced historical headlines was tough—many archives were behind paywalls or lacked regional diversity.
Sentiment analysis tools struggled with nuance, especially in culturally loaded language.
Structuring the CSV files for Plotly’s AI to read correctly took trial and error.
🏆 Accomplishments that we're proud of Built a fully functional dashboard that visualizes media bias in a way anyone can understand.
Created datasets from scratch that blend tech, history, and lived experience.
Received strong engagement from my LinkedIn post, with people resonating deeply with the mission.
📚 What we learned Bias isn’t always loud—it’s often subtle, embedded in tone and framing.
Data can be a powerful storytelling tool when paired with empathy and design.
Plotly’s AI tools are incredibly flexible once you understand how to structure your inputs.
🚀 What's next for Echoes I plan to expand the dashboard with more regional data, integrate real-time news feeds, and build a mobile-friendly version. I also want to partner with educators and journalists to use Echoes of Media as a media literacy tool in classrooms and newsrooms.
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