Words and Networks Session at Sunbelt 2018 in Utrecht

Submission closed

This session is dedicated to innovative research at the nexus of text analysis (including discourse analysis, content analysis, text mining, and natural language processing) and network analysis. While both text analysis and network analysis have evolved into mature yet still quickly advancing fields, work at their intersection lags behind in theoretical, empirical, and methodological foundations. Closing this gap matters since prior work has shown that without considering the content of text data for certain types of network analysis, e.g. when studying communication networks and social media networks, we are limited in our ability to understand the impact of language use on networks and vice versa.

Research in these areas has led to eminent work, e.g., on language change, collaborative work, recommender systems, semantic networks, relation extraction, and the diffusion and adoption of information, rumors and beliefs offline and online, among other application domains. Jointly considering text data and network data enables us to study networks along multiple dimensions of human behavior, namely language use and social interaction, and to advance our understanding of the interplay and co-evolution of information and networks. For example, the social/ collaboration structure and content from Wikipedia can be used to study different aspects of intercultural human evolution. A second aspect of bringing text analytics to the field of network analysis is the construction of network data based on natural language text data (a process also known as relation extraction) and textual meta-data, for example using word2vec and other (deep) learning based solutions.

Combining texts and networks can also help to build or supplement social network data, which renders it useful when other data collection techniques are complicated or lead to incomplete results. Examples include the computer-supported construction of network data based on archival text data including letters, diaries and digitized publications, and actor-event networks based on news data.

Abstract submission dates

Submission link and details

Details at https://sunbelt.sites.uu.nl/abstract-submission

We invite abstract submissions for oral presentations (20 minute presentation). Please limit all abstracts to 500 words, not including the title (and please do not include references).

Submit your abstract at https://sunbelt.sites.uu.nl/abstract-submission.

This session is jointly organized by

Multiple Sunbelt sessions on combining texts and networks

Please note that this year, there are three different organized sessions offered at Sunbelt that consider text data and network data:

If your work is about innovative research at the nexus of text analysis and network analysis, please submit to the session called "Words and Networks" (the session announced in this call).

If your work is about applying social network analysis theory and methods to communicative events, please submit to the session called "Network Approaches to Language, Sociocultural Interaction, and Relational Sociology”.

If your work is about advances in socio-semantic networks analysis, please submit to the session called "Socio-semantic networks analysis".

We also welcome abstract submissions that contribute to the consolidation of these fields.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email Jana Diesner (jdiesner@illinois.edu).

 

 

If you have any questions, please contact Jana Diesner (jdiesner@illinois.edu).