{"id":2012,"date":"2016-11-13T23:59:31","date_gmt":"2016-11-14T07:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/?p=2012"},"modified":"2016-11-13T23:59:31","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T07:59:31","slug":"network-graphing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/2016\/11\/13\/network-graphing\/","title":{"rendered":"Network Graphing"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, I read a short story by Callan Wink, entitled \u201cOne More Last Stand<\/a>\u201d, and created a network graph using Google Fusion Tables.\u00a0 <\/span>This network graph serves to visualize the relationships between characters in the story.\u00a0 <\/span>If characters mentioned or interacted with one another, I considered it a connection and used such data points to build an edge list.\u00a0 <\/span>Network graphs are a neat way to display associations in a more understandable way.\u00a0 <\/span>But, as with any graphic, there are restrictions to the amount of detail and accuracy included.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"screen-shot-2016-11-13-at-11-04-43-pm\"<\/p>\n

The resulting network graph<\/a>\u00a0[pictured below] successfully illuminates the frequency certain characters saw each other and accurately demonstrates who spent the most time together.\u00a0 <\/span>However, it failed to accurately represent the closeness of all the relationships.\u00a0 <\/span>For example, the story follows the main character, Perry, and the Indian women he is having an affair with, Kat Realbird, at an annual historical war reenactment.\u00a0 <\/span>The graph clearly shows the weight of Perry and Kat\u2019s affair, because they spent so much time together (they have 14 connections).\u00a0 <\/span>However, it does not necessarily show the true importance and influence of other<\/i> relationships they have – Perry to Andy, his wife, and Kat to John, her husband.\u00a0 <\/span>Even though these are marriages and therefore close connections, the network graph only illustrates their weight as 4 and 2, respectively (as opposed to the affair that had a much stronger weight).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"screen-shot-2016-11-13-at-11-03-52-pm\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Another example of this type of graph\u2019s limitations can be demonstrated regarding the relationships with the weight of \u201c1\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>Since I built the edge list around anytime characters interacted or mentioned each other, some connections seemed to have equal \u201cweight\u201d, when in fact the true relationships were very different.\u00a0 <\/span>For instance, in the beginning of the short story, Perry asks about Nolan, and old friend who he has known for years.\u00a0 <\/span>Later, Perry encounters a random stranger (labelled as \u201cPretend Dead\u201d) who played dead in the war reenactment.\u00a0 <\/span>Perry doesn\u2019t not even talk to this stranger- he only shares a scene in the reenactment with him.\u00a0 <\/span>However, both of these connections are given a \u201c1\u201d weight, and therefore seem equivalent on the network graph when they, in fact, are not.\u00a0 <\/span>Mathematically, the relationships are the same, but in reality, Perry was close friends with one man and had never spoke to the other.\u00a0 <\/span>These examples demonstrate the clear limitations to how much detail a\u00a0<\/span>network graph can really serve to show.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, I read a short story by Callan Wink, entitled \u201cOne More Last Stand\u201d, and created a network graph using Google Fusion Tables.\u00a0 This network graph serves to visualize … Continue reading “Network Graphing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}