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By Sherwood

Many of my classmates are conducting network analyses for their final projects. Rather than simply collecting primary sources, parsing them, recognizing trends and drawing conclusions, they analyzed relationships between the sources.

For “United States of Amourica,” Alec conducted a network analysis on language within antebellum love letters. He visually demonstrated the relationships between words using Textplot, which allowed him to quickly identify trends. Avery identified key figures in the founding of Davidson College by their correspondence. She discovered that individuals who performed multiple roles within the community comprised the bridges of her network. A significant component of my own project, which demonstrates the evolution of early Southern railroads, involves recognizing the relationships between individual lines. Of course, this narrative has ultimately manifested itself as a dynamic map.

Apparently, network analysis demands visual representation. But why are networks best represented visually? During her presentation, Avery inquired into what makes this particular methodology effective, by identifying its key features. She explained that network analysis visually demonstrates the flow of information within a community. Furthermore, connections represent an individual’s social capital and ability to influence others.

Interestingly, none of these features explain why network analysis seemingly demands visual representation. Instead, I would argue that something about the way humans experience relationships makes us more comfortable learning about them visually. Consider the alternative. In my experience, textual representations of networks are difficult to grasp. For example, imagine the relative complexity of a book about the community of founding fathers, compared to a diagram consisting of nodes and edges.

I think these musings about visual representations of history point towards a single conclusion about the nature of information. Namely, that information itself exists in varying forms, and is best consumed in varying forms. Otherwise, why would humans have five senses instead of a single receptor? Historians have ineffectually used language to recorded sights and sounds from every place and time. But can these sensations be accurately captured and conveyed with only words? It’s a case of using the wrong tool for the wrong job. Through digital history, information can be preserved in more diverse forms. Perhaps these tools are the key to enriching our understanding of the past.