Making Sense of Data in the Media

Mark Taylor author Andrew Bell author Todd Hartman author Aneta Piekut author Alasdair Rae author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Sage Publications Ltd

Published:22nd Nov '19

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

This hardback is available in another edition too:

Making Sense of Data in the Media cover

The amount of data produced, captured and transmitted through the media has never been greater. But for this data to be useful, it needs to be properly understood and claims made about or with data need to be properly scrutinized.

Through a series of examples of statistics in the media, this book shows you how to critically assess the presentation of data in the media, to identify what is significant and to sort verifiable conclusions from misleading claims. How accurate are polls, and how should we know? How should league tables be read? Are numbers presented as ‘large’ really as big as they may seem at first glance?

By answering these questions and more, readers will learn a number of statistical concepts central to many undergraduate social science statistics courses. By tying them in to real life examples, the importance and relevance of these concepts comes to life. As such, this book does more than teaches techniques needed for a statistics course; it teaches you life skills that we need to use every single day.


What a timely book. In a world drowning in data we all need to know how to critically evaluate the numbers we confront every day. This book will help you ask those all-important questions and demystify statistics. From ‘is that a lot?’ to ‘is that possible?’ the authors guide you through statistical techniques that are easy to understand and simple to apply. Read it, learn the techniques and use them to become a critical data consumer. -- Jackie Carter
There are two ways to learn about statistics. You could endure pages of maths, formulae and words that are, literally, ′so last century′ (or more). Or you could learn from informative case studies exploring how, when and why data are used well or badly in today′s society. I prefer the second option; happily, the authors do too. -- Richard Harris
This excellent new book goes beyond the familiar fundamental concepts of statistics to cover the vital, but often neglected issues of place and time. It is essential reading for students who want to understand the use and misuse of numbers. -- Robert de Vries

ISBN: 9781526447197

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 620g

272 pages