This document discusses using network science and social network analysis to analyze scripts and summarize their key elements. It proposes: 1) Representing scripts as networks with characters as nodes and their co-occurrences in scenes as ties to navigate large works. 2) Extracting character co-occurrence data from scripts using computer programs and representing it as a network that can be loaded into Gephi for visualization and centrality analysis to identify main characters or themes. 3) This method is demonstrated on Shakespeare's Othello and is suggested for other large works like Tolstoy's War and Peace to help understand them at a high level.

1. Haveyounetwork’dtonight,
Desdemona?
Using Network Science to Analyze Scripts

2. WhyNotJustReadtheScript?
● One picture is worth 1,000 words (use network as a
navigational chart)
a. Othello (W.Shakespeare): 28,000 words
b. War and Peace (L.Tolstoy): 587,000 words
c. A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (M.Proust): 1,267,000 words
● The script may be in Chinese, Arabic or Russian--and you
still want to know who is the main character...
● ...which may not be clear even if the script is in
English! (Hint: it’s Iago!)
Use social network analysis (SNA).

3. NotInventedHere
T.Eliassi-Rad and M.Gupte, “Measuring Tie Strength in
Implicit Social Networks,” Proceedings of the 4th ACM
International Conference on Web Science (WebSci'12),
Evanston, IL, June 2012.

4. Co-Occurrence
Two characters are connected if they occur in the same
scene. Co-occurrences can be traced by hand (for Othello) or
using a computer program.
1. Get a good electronic source, ideally with character
names and act/scene boundaries properly designated; say,
this
2. Write a computer program to extract the information

5. PythonCodeSample
# Import all required modules
import bs4 as bs, re, urllib.request, networkx as nx
from networkx.algorithms import bipartite
# Use this free and well-structured electronic text
URL = 'http://shakespeare.mit.edu/othello/full.html'
# Download the text and "cook" a "soup"
soup = bs.BeautifulSoup(urllib.request.urlopen(URL),
'html5lib') ….

6. SavetheNetworkintoaFile&LoadintoGephi
● Gephi is a “Microsoft Draw” for SNA.
● Can be used to create networks by hand, but much more
efficient for processing previously constructed networks.
● Display the network, but also calculate centralities--
they may tell us what the story is about
Note to self: ask RC if have more time, and switch to Gephi
if affirmative

7. HopeItWorked!

8. HowaboutWar&Peace?

9. TakeHomeMessage
Digital Humanities = Digital + Humanities
Take both!