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Tracking Social Networking In Shakespeare Plays
An anonymous reader writes "By feeding PieSpy (an IRC bot used to visualise social networks) with the entire texts of Shakespeare plays, it became possible to produce drawings of the social networks present in his plays - it is now possible to visualize the relationships between the characters in his works, and see Shakespeare in an entirely new light."
Based on the article and PieSpy site, it seems that PieSpy only finds the existence of a connection between members -- a symmetric relationship in which "A connects to B" implies "B connects to A". Yet human relationships tend to be asymmetric: "A likes B" does not imply that "B likes A" and "A controls B" certainly does not imply "B controls A".
A more powerful version of PieSpy would examine the text (and context) of who is connecting to whom. For example, the introduction of new words by some members of the network and the echoing of those words by others would help identify the directional flow of information in the network and help assess the level of control of the thread by some members over others. Analyzing the emotional content of words in threads could probably even let the software make approximate judgements of who likes/hates whom. Analyzing when some members leave IRC as a function of the joining of other members might also help detect asymmetric relationships.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Before any kid is given a book of a Shakespeare play, they should go and see it performed.
And a note to english teachers - these are stories and are meant to entertain people - remember that when you teach it.