According to Freud "words were originally magic and to this day words have retained much of their ancient magical power". By words, behaviors are transformed and problems are solved. The way we use words reveals our intentions, goals and values. Novel tools for text analysis help understand the magical power of words. This power is multiplied, if it is combined with the study of social networks, i.e. with the analysis of relationships among social units. This special issue of the International Journal of Information Management, entitled "Combining Social Network Analysis and Text Mining: from Theory to Practice", includes heterogeneous and innovative research at the nexus of text mining and social network analysis. It aims to enrich work at the intersection of these fields, which still lags behind in theoretical, empirical, and methodological foundations. The nine articles accepted for inclusion in this special issue all present methods and tools that have business applications. They are summarized in this editorial introduction.
翻译:根据弗洛伊德的“最初的词是魔法,直到今天,文字保留了它们许多古老的魔法”。用词,行为是转变的,问题是解决的。用词的方式揭示了我们的意图、目标和价值观。新颖的文字分析工具有助于理解文字的神奇力量。如果将这种力量与社会网络研究(即社会单位之间关系的分析)结合起来,那么这种力量就成倍增加。《国际信息管理杂志》的这一特刊题为“社会网络分析和文字挖掘的结合:从理论到实践”包括了对文字挖掘和社会网络分析联系的多样化和创新研究。它旨在丰富这些领域的交叉工作,这些方面仍然落后于理论、经验、方法基础。被接受列入这一特殊议题的九项文章中,所有现有的具有商业应用的方法和工具。它们在本编辑导言中被概括。