Siwei Xie – Looking Outwards 09

“They Rule” is one of the pioneers in revealing the implications and power of data visualization, as well as the role that data designers play in them in a scenario where data was starting to be abundant. My peer did not add her thoughts in the assessment, she mainly described what the project is, which I agree with the facts. 

I can add more of my original thoughts to her assessment. I think “They Rule” is a starting point for research on these powerful individuals and corporations. Network visualization allows corroborating things that are known but not seen until then as directors of powerful companies repeating themselves in more than one company, concentrating power in a few. 

However, “They Rule” is not a real-time representation of a dataset as the formation of company directories is constantly changing. Currently, we find many representations of power networks of politicians, businessmen, corporations, knowledge networks, etc. What makes “They Rule” is that it was one of the pioneering projects in making visible the relationships between individuals that constitute the power class.

Link to my peer’s assessment. SooA Kim, Looking Outwards 07, 10/11/2019.

Link to the original source. Josh On, “They Rule”, 2001.