What I found interesting about this article was the fact that Drucker essentially annihilated our preconceived notions of authority pertaining to knowledge in the form of graphical representations. Our understanding of a certain statistic is based on our ability to relate one set of data to another. She describes our existing paradigm of communicating information in the digital humanities as a process that is based on a fundamentally different set of epistemological assumptions drawn from disciplines that are “at odds with a humanistic method”.
An immediate connection I made when reading this article was the June 2014 Coca Cola advertisement “Happy Cycle”. The happy cycle is a Goldberg contraption designed to deliver cans of coke by getting a user to exercise on the bike. Coca Cola reported that it would take a 140 pound male or female around 23 minutes to burn off the amount of calories in one can of coke on this over-sized bike. Bystanders who who took a turn on the bike were given a can of coke as a reward. However, the problem was that most Americans weigh over 140 pounds, therefore the statistic used by Coca Cola is largely irrelevant as it pertained to a small sector of the population. Statistics from the article collected by the CDC show that an average 20 year old American man weighs approximately 196 pounds, 50 pounds well over what Coca Cola uses as a standard. The misleading assumption of a person being able to burn off a can of coke through a uniform exercise pattern throws any notions of human diversity out the window. It does not take into account individual differences from person to person such as rate of metabolism, gender, fitness, BMI just to name a few. Furthermore the idea of having to do 23 minutes of exercise pedaling on a bike to burn off the sugar in a can of coke, also neglects other health aspects of coke such as cholestrol or blood pressure. (God knows what they put in Coke.) Representation of information is not only about the capta itself, but largely pertains to the medium by which a person digests it through. Their initial exposure to the data largely shapes the way in which they perceive and formulate an opinion on the matter.
http://www.businessinsider.com/coke-happy-cycle-ad-calorie-statistics-2014-6