Once Analysis Questions

After watching the beginning scenes from Once Upon a Time and gathering social network analysis data, hidden trends could be observed. From the directional and undirectional techniques demonstrated in class, it was decided that the collected data would be split into two unique perspectives: speaking and affiliation. Speaking was categorized as directional, in that the relation between characters could be observed as being multi-directional. On the other hand, affiliation was classifed undirectional, due to a one-way relation between characters.

To address the “Analyzing Video - What to do with those networks?” questions:

  1. Looking at directional speaking data, the main characters are: Charming, Snow, Emma, Henry, and Regina. Professor Hemphill’s data shows this because each of these characters have a minimum of 64 lines (Regina), while a minor character (e.g. taxi driver having four lines) would have significantly fewer dialogues. The undirectional affiliation data set also confirms this list of main characters.

  2. Dyads likely to become significant are: Charming and Snow, Emma and Henry, and Emma and Regina. A repeating trend of pair dialogues can be observed throughout the episode.

  3. Characters that form a community are: Charming, Snow, dwarves, and fairies, but also Emma, Henry, and the lost storybook characters of the seaside town known as StoryBrooke.

  4. The show’s “multiple world” settings are reflected in the data because the shift from total fairytale characters such as Charming and Snow, to urban characters such as Emma and Henry, become apparent through extended changes of dialogue. This is demonstrated best in the directional speaking data set, where such extensions become easier to distinguish.

  5. Another show observed could be The Three Stooges. Its directional data set would vary in that the main characters of the episode are primarily the same in all episodes. There would not exist a “multiple world” setting, with the exception of only a few episodes. Overall, with the implementation of a smaller number of characters, or increased amount of minor roles in the episodes, as shown in The Three Stooges, the patterns and trends of main characters, communities, and settings become much more apparent.

Written on October 3, 2016 by Denis Komarov