Topology analysis of social networks extracted from literature.

In a world where complex networks are an increasingly important part of science, it is interesting to question how the new reading of social realities they provide applies to our cultural background and in particular, popular culture. Are authors of successful novels able to reproduce social networks faithful to the ones found in reality? Is there any common trend connecting an author's oeuvre, or a genre of fiction? Such an analysis could provide new insight on how we, as a culture, perceive human interactions and consume media. The purpose of the work presented in this paper is to define the signature of a novel's story based on the topological analysis of its social network of characters. For this purpose, an automated tool was built that analyses the dialogs in novels, identifies characters and computes their relationships in a time-dependent manner in order to assess the network's evolution over the course of the story

Differential between the extracted and correct networks in “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” [1].

<p>Red edges are incorrect edges, green edges were identified correctly.</p

Degree distribution for all Harry Potter books.

<p>Degree distribution for all Harry Potter books.</p

Average clustering coefficient for each book & clustering coefficient for a similar random network.

<p>Average clustering coefficient for each book & clustering coefficient for a similar random network.</p

Preferential attachment in “Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets” [2].

<p>Preferential attachment in “Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets” [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0126470#pone.0126470.ref002" target="_blank">2</a>].</p

Degree distribution in the full “Harry Potter” series plus the power approximation.

<p>Degree distribution in the full “Harry Potter” series plus the power approximation.</p

Exponent of the power approximation.

<p>Exponent of the power approximation.</p

Dendrogram for the hierarchical clustering of the books using the Ward variance minimization algorithm.

<p>Dendrogram for the hierarchical clustering of the books using the Ward variance minimization algorithm.</p

Example of the first step of the speaker’s identification process.

<p>Locating the subject of the sentence.</p

Preferential attachment in “Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone” [1].

<p>This plot represents the probability, given the degree of a given node at a given time, that a new node being added to the social network will have a connection to that node.</p