Documentaries and data visualizations have long sought innovative approaches to narrate data-driven stories, striving to balance effective storytelling and insightful data visualization. Despite the growing interest in this intersection, limited research has been published on the convergence of these two domains. This article aims to bridge this gap, offering a preliminary exploration into their points of convergence. Our study centers on data-driven webdocs –a novel form of web documentary that places data visualization at its core while incorporating other multimedia elements to enrich the narrative experience. In this paper, we compile existing research and analyze specific examples to identify the distinctive features of data-driven webdocs. Furthermore, building upon prior studies, we propose that this emerging format be recognized as a new genre for narrating stories through data.
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López-Lozano et al. (2025) studied this question.
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