Social Networks in Literature
With the pervasiveness of technology in everyday life, the principles of computer science and logical thinking have found their way into the traditionally “non-technical” disciplines such as the humanities or the arts. The oft rigid image of computer science as a cold, unfeeling and sterile tool for the sciences is constantly being challenged with pioneering fields such as digital humanities or other crosses between artistic and scientific professions. In a way, the power of abstract thinking is transcending boundaries of academia to become simply another tool to approach the recurring question, “Why?” and “How?” in all areas of study.
Digital humanities seeks to bridge the gap between tech and humanities. By using precise tools to create logical models, we may be able to learn more about the motivations behind the human mind and emotions as well as map patterns in the creative world. For example, network scientists have delved into the production and classification of literature to analyze how exactly certain pieces of writing are analyzed, distributed, published, and classified into different genres and schools of thought.
Nooy, in his paper regarding social networks in relation to literature, investigated the correspondence between authors and publications companies and used social network analysis to see if any clusters formed which might indicate differing genres or schools of thought. While literature covers a vast variety of topics, writers who remain in one category almost live in a small, intimate bubble of similar thinkers who correspond heavily with each other and not as frequently with writers outside of their frequented domain. This relates closely to the concept of strong triadic closure, as people often communicate with the people they are most familiar with, or in other words, the people they have already communicated frequently with. This kind of reinforcing of networks was reflected in Nooy’s study through the formation of clusters.
Nooy studied the network of literature as viewed by literary critics. This means that most edges in Nooy’s main network which he studied were interactions between literary reviews and references to different works within a magazine article or a literary criticism. He found that the networks of literary magazines (which authors contribute to which magazines and publishing companies) correlated strongly with the “material networks” of literature.
With more studies that merge literature and the arts with technology and math, hopefully we will be able to uncover more about the interactions between people and the way we think and approach problems in the world.
Source: W. de Nooy. Poetics, Volume 20 Issues 5-6 (pg. 507-537). December 1991.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0304422X9190023I