Analyze

I published this news article about a hunger strike against Formosa Plastics that occurred in Texas this fall. Despite the extremity of a 30-day hunger strike, the protesting tactic has not gained attention from national media outlets. At the time I published this article, two small environmental organizations had announced the beginning of the strike, but none continued to cover the event in the unfolding weeks. While activists are driven to take on dangerous protest tactics, little communication of these tactics has carried across mass media.

The article itself introduces Formosa Plastics through its reputation as a "serial offender" of environmental and workplace safety regulations. I list several statistics on legal fines that Formosa Plastics has accumulated overtime, using these quantities to demonstrate the scale of their harm to environmental and human health. An important limitation of this storytelling strategy, however, is that many of Formosa Plastics' actions go undocumented, and even when documented, do not lead to legal consequences. Furthermore, we should still strive to acknowledge the harms committed by Formosa Plastics that are technically within legal limits.

California Open Data Portal is affiliated with CalData a professional network for data-curious government individuals and partners. CalData is used to advocate for a strong, connected data infrastructure within the government, and provide a digital space where the public can search for all federal datasets at once.

In the “about” section of their website, GovOps acknowledges that they must still continue to work with open data sources, making datasets more accessible to Californians.

Government Operations Agency. California Open Data Portal. 2015. https://data.ca.gov/

The main page on the site immediately directs you to a search bar where you can search for a state agency, topic, or keywords. There is also a guidebook and a public open data training video for a user to learn how to find data and produce data visualizations.

This figure shows a smaller window open within the California State Water Resources Control Board page on Cal Open Data Portal, providing straightforward access to an Excel document displaying a dataset within the state 2019 water quality status report that sampled 1,2,3-trichloropropane, a drinking water contaminant.

Each federal state organization has the number of open datasets listed below them, and is also available to click on to discover those datasets.

Cal Open Data Portal demonstrates that it is able to bring together different datasets from various government agencies. It also allows for open data to be linked across different existing datasets.

Cal Open Data Portal draws data from state agencies. Census tracts can be searched for, for example, searching for Census Tract Disadvantaged Communities 2018, opens a synopsis and map showing each tract and its attributes. However, some of these data sets are linked to GIS programs, meaning they could be layers that are created to add to a map, making it difficult for non-GIS users to navigate and understand. In an attempt to provide assistance with this measure, the website provides a guidebook and a public open data training video for a user to learn how to find data and produce data visualizations. 

California Open Data Portal is designed to host open data from more than one state agency and aims to link all existing state portals in order for California's open data sets to be easily searched for from https://data.ca.gov. Open data or public data is collected through the state's routine business activities and is published in a way that is simple to search for, download, and combine with other data. Open data does not include private or confidential information on individuals.