How to conduct semantic network analysis

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to offer basic guidelines and tools to conduct semantic network analysis and to outline the possible uses of such an analysis in the social sciences. As many readers may not have previous knowledge and experience in computation analysis, this chapter provides step-by-step instructions for how to choose and prepare the corpus for analysis, select desired words, construct simple and readable networks, and even perform some basic analyses such as cluster analysis to reveal the structure, the topics, and ultimately the meanings of those networks. Bearing in mind that social scientists often do not get proper training in programming, this chapter also presents some of the publicly available tools, such as word frequency calculators and text-to-network convertors, to enable researchers to easily engage in text analysis related research.

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