Historical Network Analysis - An Introduction

[@heatherrichard3138]

This is fantastic! I am doing my PhD in ancient history and am looking to incorporate network analysis in my research. Thank you so much for this presentation!

[@MartinGrandjean]

Dear Heather, thank you for your comment and your interest. You'll find a few more recent videos on my channel and website, and don't miss historicalnetworkresearch.org/ and its bibliography if you want to go further!

[@christophmahler]

I came across Your introduction into Gephi, years ago, but now You offer what I was actually looking for, back then. Since under-graduate lectures rarely include introductions into methods of social science and digital humanities, I thank You for making this video ! I've seen an example of historical research, once - but the catch was that it depended on an _already available dataset_ of individuals - which could be a factor of confirmation bias if the origin of the dataset isn't completely transparent. Building up datasets could be the actual challenge - because before looking at the complete visualization of a social network, one doesn't know where to look for relevant connections...

[@MartinGrandjean]

Many thanks for your message. Yes, when you use an already available dataset, you (unfortunately) avoid a whole part of the reflection and source criticism. By the way, I made another video that develops a little more the historical aspect of the case study presented here, you will find it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eYW7o4mZndJja68

[@christophmahler]

@@MartinGrandjean Thanks for Your friendly reply Martin - and the link ! I haven't watched that most recent video yet. I think, it would be helpful for students to be walked through several _simple_ examples, showcasing the _relevance_ of such visualization to realize it's potential (in addition to the 'embedded' example on the League of Nation). E.g. I'm interested in _informal_ social networks that leave little papertrail in archives (officials love taking historical material to their homes or to gift it to _private_ archives), but still have significant cultural impact (e.g. why public discourse is _exclusively_ 'framed' along 'modernization theory' when in academia 'Whig historiography' has been taught as just one _narrative_ among others - since decades...). Never comprehending 'who is who' undermines critical judgement, therefore _popularizing_ techniques that create that _sensitivity_ should be 'nudged' into the 'curriculum' - at least so do I think.

[@DrDil-uw2nr]

I am bioinformatician. Your method on historical network analysis will help me immensely in my work. I'm so glad I stumbled upon your videos! Your content is outstanding and the commentary really helps to explain things clearly. Keep up the great work! Thank you! :) Are there any tutorials for creating the graphs in your video?

[@MartinGrandjean]

Hello, and many thanks for your kind comment! Glad that it helps! I do have a (rather old but still usable) Gephi tutorial here: www.martingrandjean.ch/gephi-introduction/ and the data used in this video as a case study can be found here if you want to play with it: github.com/grandjeanmartin/intellectual-cooperation

[@DrDil-uw2nr]

@@MartinGrandjean thank you!

[@muskduh]

Thanks G

[@prosocial_lad]

First of all this is terrific and I'm really enamored by the level of depth that you go into to cover such a huge amount of subject matter in a short period of time. Second, I'm wondering what recommendations you would have for a person trying to create a visualization like what you've got at @26:32 for a map of the organizational ecosystem of a city?

[@MartinGrandjean]

Thank you for your comment! I made a newer version of this introduction in an 1-hour video series here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/op-viGl_iauMaa8 I used Gephi and the 3 dimensional layout plugin for the figure you're referring to. I would not necessarily recommend to produce such 3D visualisation, at least not as a first step into your process (you'll find the data here if you want to reproduce it and understand how it should be encoded for Gephi: github.com/grandjeanmartin/intellectual-cooperation). 3D is often misleading, you need to be very clear about what you put in the different layers before.

[@prosocial_lad]

@@MartinGrandjean Thank you professor! Do you know of any more 'amateur friendly' ways to model something like that? I am trying to explain some facets of my local arts-nonprofit ecosystem to city officials and it would be helpful to create a digital visualization of the field of actors and their relationships. I've been thinking about doing it in Miro but feel like it would too messy to be of any use.

[@mirtem5682]

Thank you!