Discourse Modeling

by Xavier Llorà, Noriko Imafuji Yasui, David E. Goldberg (2006). Proceedings of the International Conference on Weblogs and Social Mining (ICWSM 2007). Also as IlliGAL TR. No. 2006026. Link to the PDF. Abstract The blogsphere is a valuable source of information. From simple topic analysis in the blogosphere—what’s hot—to harvesting and analyzing valuable market trends—what product and features are suggested—require a tight integration of computer- and human-based analysis capabilities. Computers can easily assist the processing filtering and visualizing relevant and key elements of the blogosphere, but coupling them with human evaluation and reasoning can provide the final steps to connect pieces of relevant information into better description map of the current trends of the blogosphere. An example of the need for such human-centered analysis was David R. Ellis’ film Snakes on a Plane (2006) which failed to properly translate blogosphere discussions into a successful commercial product—as a clear misalignment of both environments the blogsphere and the final targeted market. In this paper, we present some human-centered visualization and analysis tools that can help users to compare and reason synergies and misalignments revolving around a particular topic. ...

by Naohiro Matsumura, David E. Goldberg, and Xavier Llorà (2006). Journal of Soft Computing, Volume 11 , Issue 8, pp. 791–798, ACM press. Link to the ACM portal. Initial work also available as IlliGAL TR No 2005001. Abstract In the paper, we first present an approach to extract social networks from message boards on the Internet. Then we propose communication gaps based on structural features of the social networks as an indicator of understanding the state of communication. After we classify 3,000 social networks into three types of communication, i.e., interactive communication, distributed communication, and soapbox communication, we suggest communication gap management to identify the types of communication, the roles of individuals, and important ties, all of which can be used for drawing up a plan for realizing fertile community. ...

by Noriko Imafuji Yasui, Xavier Llorà, and David E. Goldberg (2006). Illinois Technical Report No. 2006025. Link to the PDF. Abstract In this paper, we propose some methodologies for delineating topic and discussant transitions in online collaborative environments, more precisely, focus group discussions for product conceptualization. First, we propose KEE (Key Elements Extraction) algorithm, an algorithm for simultaneously finding key terms and key persons in a discussion. Based on KEE algorithm, we propose approaches for analyzing two important factors of discussions: discussion dynamics and emerging social networks. Examining our approaches using actual network-based discussion data generated by real focus groups in a marketing environment, we report interesting results that demonstrate how our approaches could effectively discover knowledge in the discussions. ...

by Xavier Llorà, Noriko Imafuji Yasui, David E. Goldberg (2006) Abstract This paper proposes AKEE (Adaptable Key Elements Extraction) algorithm for web-log (blog, for short) mining. AKEE enables us to identify significant information in various blog components (e.g., a blog post, a series of blog posts, a set of series of blog posts, etc.). Illinois Technical Report No. 2006024. Link to the PDF.

by Xavier Llorà, Noriko Imafuji Yasui, Michael Welge, David E. Goldberg (in press, 2007). To apper in the Proceedings of the Digital Humanities 2007 Conference.Also as IlliGAL TR No. 2006023. Link to the PDF. Abstract Blogging has become a new and disruptive communication medium. Blogs have changed the way people and organizations express, interact, and—quite unforeseen—exercise influence. The digital nature of the blog media provides access to an always-expanding corpus of information. It would take more than a lifetime to read all the available blogs necessary to answer questions such as what were the more relevant plots suggested or what key concepts were managed by bloggers in their ideas. However, human-centered analysis and visualization techniques may help users navigate such enormous corpus. This paper presents human-centered analysis and visualization techniques for supporting innovation and creativity can help to identify relevant post portions and to visualize concept relations in the blogosphere. ...