Digital Discussions in the Humanities and Social Sciences: "Are Common Topics Common? Rhetorical Questions and Computational Methods"

Hart-Davidson, William

Digital Discussions in the Humanities and Social Sciences: "Are Common Topics Common? Rhetorical Questions and Computational Methods"

dc.contributor.author	Hart-Davidson, William	en
dc.date.accessioned	2013-09-23T18:46:01Z	en
dc.date.available	2013-09-23T18:46:01Z	en
dc.date.issued	2013-09-18	en
dc.description.abstract	William Hart-Davidson, Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Writing and Co-Director of the Writing in Digital Environments (WIDE) Research Center at Michigan State University, will discuss his research that highlights the potential uses of mathematical and computational models for studying contemporary online communication. "In this talk, I will make the case for using mathematical models to render internet discussion threads as computational objects. The focus of my presentation is less on the techniques, however, than on the correspondence between the mathematical models and concepts from rhetorical theory, beginning with the way both human coders and our computer model focus on basic units of analysis, and discussing how these units are understood to form larger discursive structures such as arguments. I’ll show how our research group came to understand random graph (Erdös-Rényi random graphs) and network analysis techniques (Eigen-vector centrality) to provide us with a means of describing and, perhaps, predicting the way discussion threads develop over time."	en
dc.description.notes	Presented on September 13, 2013 in SCALE UP Classroom, Newman Library	en
dc.format.mimetype	video/mp4	en
dc.format.mimetype	video/webm	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10919/23831	en
dc.language.iso	en_US	en
dc.relation.ispartofseries	Digital Discussion in the Humanities and Social Sciences	en
dc.rights	In Copyright	en
dc.rights.holder	Virginia Tech. University Libraries	en
dc.rights.uri	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/	en
dc.subject	Digital humanities	en
dc.title	Digital Discussions in the Humanities and Social Sciences: "Are Common Topics Common? Rhetorical Questions and Computational Methods"	en
dc.type	Presentation	en
dc.type	Video	en