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Chapter 376(Hansen, 2011). Thus, the maps of areas where shale gas could be retrieved suggest some form of ocular proof. At the same time, our map examples show how visual supplements can offer proof of different types of truths which are dependent on interpretation – both of the visualization and of the reality it represents. This makes visualizations a particular type of boundary object (see also An & Powe, 2015; Metze, 2010, 2020; Morseletto, 2017, p. 41). Their evidential nature and their multiinterpretability make them objects that are ‘weakly structured in common use, and become strongly structured in individual use’ (Star & Griesemer, 1989, p. 393). Our study adds to the study of the concept of boundary object by investigating it in a situation of conflict. As an exploratory study, it lays the foundation for future work that will investigate different meanings that actors assign to a visualization while engaging with it as producers or as viewers.Discerning the type of visualization may lead to new insights about the contribution of visualizations to the evolution of discourse coalitions. Our empirical examples suggest that photographs and data visualizations (maps, infographics) produce a visual narrative in different ways. Photographs overtly narrate a storyline (of risk or of energy independence in a dry area), whereas data visualizations narrate a storyline more subtly. A careful look at the data visualizations is needed to decode their visual storylines and to reveal differences between them – perhaps because data visualizations commonly represent reality in a more abstract way than photographs. Moreover, in our empirical examples, differences between visual narratives in maps and in infographics are caused by different visual techniques: maps differentiate between two storylines by adding a layer of data; infographics do that by using the technique of zooming out. The zooming technique is acknowledged also in the literature (Schneider & Walsh, 2019) as a means of materializing a politically problematic issue. Further research is needed to better understand the role of the types (infographics, photographs, maps, and so on) of visualizations and their specific characteristics in discourse formation.Our approach attends to the role visualizations play in creating online publics. Because of their unique characteristics and the affordance of the internet (see Rogers, 2013), online visualizations are capable of mobilizing publics and creating a global community. However, visualizations considered as ‘global’ to some audiences might narrate a different story to other audiences, as shown by Jasanoff (2004). In addition, studies that use the internet as a source often consider the Efrat.indd 76 19-09-2023 09:47