Session 1: Social Network Analysis with Dan (10:30-11:20)

Social Network Analysis with Dan (10:30-11:20)

• Introductions
• Dan’s Salem witch trial project (wordpress.com)
  • Briefing on his project
    • Biggest problem: How are people connected?
      • Over 900 documents to review
        • SNA is a useful way to keep track of the individuals and track their interactions
      • So far he has over 2000 pairs
    • Question: how is this being created?
      • NodeXL demonstration
        • System of line and node connections
        • Ranks the most central figures
        • First two months of documents have been documented
          • March documents
            • Information recorded in an excel spreadsheet
              • 50 people
              • Over 1000 relationships
            • Input data into NodeXL where the data is prepared through the program
          • Program can track the different clusters
          • Data can be grouped into boxes
            • Tracks the various trial
          • Behind each infividual, the program positions them within the web
            • Degree of centrality-how many people do they know?
            • Betweenness centrality-how many connections are there between individuals
            • Closeness centrality
            • Eigenvector centrality
              • If it is a high number-they can be identified as the most powerful/important people
            • Question: why did they (accusers) accuse so many people?
              • Unknown
                • Various theories
                • Ann Putnam is a 12 year old girl in a puritan society
                  • Believes that her father (Thomas Putnam) is pushing her to do this
                • Question: Have you found anything that you didn’t expect to find?
                  • Past scholarship did not connect different groups but Dan has all of the people connected (everythingis examined through a larger lens)
                  • He has found connections that weren’t previously identified
                • There are many ways that data can be displayed
                  • Harel-Koren
                    • You can see the individuals and their relations “blossom”
                  • Circle
                    • You can see the density of your network
                      • Helps you see who you should focus on (fewer connections vs. many connections)
                    • Spiral (not the best for this project)
                    • Sine Wave
                      • Demonstrates the denseness as well
                    • Question: are you keeping an archive of the documents you record?
                      • So far the information exists in a book
                      • Future plans to scan documents in Salem, MA
                    • Positive feedback by senior Salem scholars
                  • Question: how is the network constructed?
                    • It is important to look at the network as a whole before there is an investigation on a deeper level
                      • These connections would not have been found if there was not a quantitative applications to this history
                    • Question: is there a way to identify this textually? What happens when people are color blind?
                      • Extremely difficult
                    • Question: How do you emphasize people are in contact every day? Can you weigh individual relations in the visualization?
                      • You would make an edge weight (make line between the nodes thicker)
                      • Directional vs. non-directional (identified by arrow)
                        • Demonstrates who is reaching out to who
                      • Question: Is there a good tutorial out there?
                        • Book by NodeXL
                        • Diane Cline’s upcoming book Digital Humanities and NodeXL (coming in 3 months)
                          • Example in book Plutarch’s Life of Pericles
                            • Through the example, there is a step-by-step instructions so that data can be visualized
                              • Extremely detailed instructions
                            • Gender column to track the interactions between male and females
                          • Other SNA projects
                            • Diane Cline’s Socrates project
                              • Students, philosophers, intellectuals, Sophists, etc
                                • Look at the different clusters interaction
                                  • Check it out at dianehcline.com
                                • Connections within Shakespeare’s play
                                • Stanford Lit Lab
                                  • Tracks Hamlet and the relationship between the characters
                                  • Has not been generated in an SNA program
                                • Tina’s oral history project
                                  • Group house of an artistic community in Alexandria (no longer in existence)
                                    • Looks at how artistic communities are anchored by different people
                                      • Mapping of relations between the “creative class”
                                        • What can you see about the creative class of Arlington