here is the link to my project
What (or who) are the nodes and what are the edges?
- The project that I chose was Network of Thrones and for the season 8 network analysis, the nodes represent each of the 74 characters, with the characters more deserving of the throne having larger names. There are 553 weighted edges between each of the nodes that represent each of the interactions between the characters in the show.
How are the relationships characterized and categorized?
- Once the narrative in the show begins to pickup, the relationship between characters begins to solidify. These relationships are represented by the edges as interactions between characters. The characters are also ranked among 5 categories: Degree, Weighted Degree, Eigenvector, PageRank, Betweenness. Betweenness being the measurement of how a character helps to connect disparate parts of the network, and eigenvector being the measurement of how many important people they know.
What interactions does the project allow?
- This project allows face to face interactions between characters, and also when a character’s name is referenced it is counted as an interaction. What the project doesn’t account for is a character’s narrative importance especially considering the previous seasons. Sam, for example, who has a large impact on tying the storylines together and great character development has the highest degree of any character, but his weighted degree doesn’t accurately represent this.
How was the project created?
- The project was created using tools taken from Network Science and applied to an exploratory analysis of the network of characters within Game of Thrones. The project focused on two questions: “Which characters naturally belong together, forming coherent communities within the network?” and “Which characters play an important role in the network?” They started by splitting the network into communities so that modularity is maximized, then color the nodes according to their community and choose a structure that emphasizes the community structure. The networks were then ranked by 5 different centrality measures(Degree, Weighted Degree, Eigenvector, PageRank, Betweenness), with a degree centrality meaning the number of other nodes that are connected to it by an edge. The weighted degree is the total number of interactions involving the character. Eigenvector centrality is the measurement of how powerful a character’s network is. PageRank captures narrative tension and finally betweenness is the raw count of the number of short paths that go through a given node.
