Tracing Coordination and Cooperation Structures via Semantic Burst Detection

Abstract

Developing technologies that support collaboration requires understanding how knowledge and expertise are shared and distributed among community members. In this article, we explore two forms of knowledge distribution structures, coordination and cooperation, that are central to successful collaboration, among members in political communities. We propose a novel method for detecting the coordination of strategic communication among these members. Our method is grounded on diverse research in communications, centering on the idea that a "semantic burst" (a sudden burst in the usage of a particular set of concepts by multiple individuals within a short time) is a signature of communication coordination. We detect such semantic bursts as being the rapid emergence of unusual three-word sequences (trigrams). We apply our method to public statements by U.S. Senators in the 112th U.S. Congress. Several cases of bursts detected by this method are examined, each corresponding to a theoretical explanation for semantic convergence. Coordination and cooperation networks amongst Senators are then constructed from the semantic convergences that are detected. The structures of these networks are compared to one another and to networks and attributes gathered for the Senate. Results indicate that the detected networks reflect certain underlying tendencies in the social relationships amongst Senators. Analysis of the networks also reveals interesting differences in how members of the different parties select whom to converge with.