A short review of Connected China: A visualization of elite social networks in China

Xiaogang MaTWC/RPI

2013-11-01, eScience seminar

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This presentation

• Features of Connected China• Technologies in its development• Potential updates

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Connected China

• http://connectedchina.reuters.com

• “tracks and visualizes the people, institutions and relationships that form China's elite power structure”

• Launched: Feb. 2013

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Features

• “[Connected China] provides deep insight into China’s new generation of leaders and features the best of Reuters’ coverage in data, text, photos and video.”

• Optimized for iPad 2+ and Chrome and Safari

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Features of Connected China

General information News

Circles of power

Paths to power

Roles of power

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• Families:– Princelings– Golden Sons-in-Law

• Coalitions– Shanghai Clique– Tuanpai

powerful family connections play a crucial role in all spheres of society

Party leadership is largely divided between two informal coalitions

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• Relationships with party elders

• Accumulation of guanxi– Guanxi: the accumulated

social capital

A number of former leaders maintain their political influence through extensive social connections and the protégés they have promoted over the years

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Knowing the background information of families, coalitions, relationships with party elders will help understand the social power of an individual

Click here for literal explanation

Click here to zoom in

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• The Communist Party of China – “collective leadership” by the Politburo Standing

Committee (The Seven)– Party general secretary Xi Jinping is now only the

“first among equals” in the seven-member body

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• The three pillars of Chinese politics– Party, State, and Military

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Show details of a institution and its members

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• The path to political power– In China, the path to

political power is a structured ascent

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• Comparing the ages of political leaders

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• The impact of retirement ages– For example,

Zhou Yongkang followed a similar path as Xi, but could never reach top leadership due to the retirement cutoff

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Comparison among multiple individuals

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Working group of Connected China

• Editor + Project Leader: Irene Jay Liu • Production Heads: Yolanda Ma, Malik Yusuf • Lead Writer: Chris Ip • Copy Editor: John Newland • Design + Dev: Fathom Information Design

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Technologies

• Organization and key person– Fathom Information Design: http://fathom.info/ – Ben Fry: http://benfry.com/

• HTML 5 and CSS 3

• More background information: – http://fathom.info/china

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Data sources

• The app draws on a database containing:– Tens of thousands of entities – people,

organizations, events– More than 30,000 relationships– 1.5 million words (equivalent to more than 20

non-fiction books!)

Source: http://blogs.reuters.com/connected-china/2013/02/28/welcome/

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Visualization

• Information Architecture– Shift among them without

getting lost

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Potential updates

• Provenance?– Currently most objects are prov:Agent– More objects of prov:Entity and prov:Activity– Relationships

Diagram from the W3C Provenance ontology at: http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-o/

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Potential updates

• Career Comparison: add spatial features?

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Thanks!