Work

Growing and pruning the archive: an agent-based model to build letter correspondence networks

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The selection and availability bias concerning digital archives can be a problem for empirical studies. In the context of historical correspondence networks, we still have limited information about how missing data can affect and hinder the variables of our interest. Along these lines, we introduce an agent-based model to reconstruct historical communication using letters. We use this model to simulate the letter-sending process and its subsequent archival. We use it to build counterfactual networks and learn how the missing data caused by the archival of the letters might bias the network statistics.

Source: Digital Scholarship in the Humanities

DOI: 10.1093/llc/fqaf081

Authors: Bernardo S Buarque, Malte Vogl, Aleksandra Kaye

Institutions: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology

Language: English

Topic: Digital Humanities and Scholarship

Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,632

Funder: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung