Machiavellian Web

I am staunch believer in Machiavellian Politics. Nowhere is this more evident than in the personal and monetary connections between lobbyists and our political representatives. The visualization (http://assets.sunlightfoundation.com/images/blog/infographics/finance_committee/map/index.html) I chose shows the contributions by health sector, the lobbyist's connections to health related companies, and the representative the lobbyist had worked for but is now currently trying to influence- a true Machiavellian Web.

• Representation: the visualization encodes the relation among the lobbyists and representatives by lines connecting those two entities.
• Presentation: the visualization has panning (the smooth, continuous movement of a viewing frame over a 2D image) and zooming (the smooth, continuous magnification of a 2D image).
• Interaction: the visualization spans Norman's Action Cycle. Briefly, the viewer intends to use the visualizaiton to understand the monetary contributions by zooming on the data in the bottom left (Gulf of Execution). After perceiving, interpreting, and evaluating the data (Gulf of Evaluation), the user undertakes "opportunistic browsing" and discovers that the monetary contributions are connected to people, thus reformulating his/her goal and beginning the Action Cycle over again in an attempt to understand and appreciate the intricate "web."