Have you ever heard of the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? the challenge of the game is to find a way to draw connections between a given actor and Kevin bacon by only looking at actors they costarred with. This is a linear example of what is called network analysis. Network Analysis is a powerful tool when used appropriately. It offers and interactive and easy to understand representation of complex relationships. Looking at the links between nodes (or objects in the network) can tell a story.
Six Degrees of Francis Bacon is a digital Humanities project that uses networks analysis to link historical figures in the 16th and 17th centuries to famous English philosopher Francis Bacon. In the project, edges are drawn between individuals (or nodes) who at one point met with each other. These edges are colored based on the strength of that relationship. Black lines indicate documented proof of their relationship while grey lines are “statistically inferred”. Additionally, the color and size of each node indicates the “degrees of separation” from Francis Bacon (i.e., an orange node indicates 1 degree of separation while a white node is 2). The project is also interactive. An edge can be selected to display the individual’s relationship, the primary source indicating that relationship (if available), and what groups the two were both a part of. Nodes can also be selected and set as the origin of the network. You can view six degrees of King Henry VIII or six degrees of William Shakespeare.
What I found most impressive about the Six Degrees of Francis Bacon project, is the research that was required to develop it. The information surrounding some historical figures life’s is very sparse. researchers can only rely on archives and records from the 16th and 17th century. However, the project is organized to clearly show the strength of a relationship. If needed you can easily access the source documenting that relationship. The project makes great use of network analysis’s strengths.
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I like the way you analyzed/explained the website and some of the conclusions you made. You mentioned that getting information about the lives of some of the historical characters is hard. However, I don’t think they researched all of them in depth. By analyzing the documents about well-documented historical characters (such as Francis Bacon, or Kings) one can infer with a good degree of certainty what their social networks were, even without knowing in depth about everyone in i). Do you agree?