Hear Her Fear: Data Sonification for Sensitizing Society on Crime Against Women in India

Abstract

Data sonification is a means of representing data through sound and has been utilized in a variety of applications. Crime against women has been a rising concern in India. We explore the potential of data sonification to provide an immersive engagement with sensitive data on Crime Against Women in Indian states. The data for nine crime categories covering thirty-five Indian states over a period of twelve years is acquired from National records. Sonification techniques of parameter mapping and auditory icons are adopted: sound parameters such as frequencies, amplitudes and timbres are incorporated to represent the crime data, and audio sounds of women screams are employed as auditory icons to emphasize the traumatic experience. Higher crime rates are assigned higher frequencies, harsher scream textures and larger amplitudes. A user-friendly interface is developed with multiple options for sequential and comparative data sonification. Through the interface, a user can evaluate or compare the extent of crime against women in different states, years or crime categories. Sound spatialization is used to immerse the listener in the sound and further intensify the sonification experience. To assess and validate effectiveness, a user study on twenty participants is conducted with feedback obtained through questionnaires. The responses indicate that the participants could comprehend trends in the data easily and found the data sonification experience impactful. Sonification may therefore prove to be a valuable tool for data representation in fields related to social and human studies. CCS CONCEPTS•Human-centered computing~Human computer interaction (HCI)~Interactive systems and tools~User interface toolkits •Human-centered computing~Accessibility~Accessibility systems and tools

Sonificación y periodismo: la representación de datos mediante sonidos

“…También resultó relevante la sonificación sobre la violencia contra la mujer en India, con datos obtenidos en el portal Open Data del Gobierno de India sobre nueve tipos de delitos contra las mujeres de 32 estados del país. En esta sonificación, se realiza una evolución desde 2001 hasta 2012, de tal forma que el oyente puede escuchar distintas comparativas de las tasas de criminalidad a través de la intensidad de los gritos de las mujeres (Nath, 2020). Además, se llevó a cabo un estudio sobre la percepción de las sonificaciones por parte de veinte personas (13 hombres y 7 mujeres de entre 19 a 24 años estudiantes de Ingeniería), concluyendo que la sonificación de datos en estudios sociales y humanos puede resultar una herramienta muy valiosa debido a la intensa carga emotiva que consigue crear una atmósfera sonora del miedo real que sienten las mujeres en la India.…”