Chapter IV

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.