Chapter IV
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Revealing Social
Structure from Texts:
Meta-Matrix Text Analysis as a Novel
Method for Network Text Analysisi
Jana Diesner
Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Kathleen M. Carley
Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Abstract
Texts can be coded and analyzed as networks of concepts often referred to as maps or
semantic networks. In such networks, for many texts there are elements of social
structure — the connections among people, organizations, and events. Within
organizational and social network theory an approach called the meta-matrix is used
to describe social structure in terms of the network of connections among people,
organizations, knowledge, resources, and tasks. We propose a combined approach
using the meta-matrix model, as an ontology, to lend a second level of organization to
the networks of concepts recovered from texts. We have formalized and operationalized
this approach in an automated tool for text analysis. We demonstrate how this
approach enables not only meaning but also social structure to be revealed through
text analysis. We illustrate this approach by showing how it can be used to discover
the social structure of covert networks — the terrorist groups operating in the West
Bank.