The methodology assesses who talks to who within an organization or social network, looking at how information flows among people through direct and indirect links. It is a solid article describing a narrowly used technique. Unfortunately, it does not talk specifically about how the research opportunities in this area afforded by the Internet. There is no mention of modern social networking Internet technologies, nor of firewalls, intranets, corporate policies restricting email, or communication patterns in distance learning. Esoteric in its likely audience, chapter 6 is primarily targeted for English department scholars who conduct literary criticism and rhetorical analysis of argumentation.
Analogy becomes an analysis mode of choice.
Analysis becomes more ad hoc and ephemeral. They move into discussion of where to begin, how many texts to analyze and strategies for dealing with pages that come and go. Lacking in their treatment is discussion of what and why to analyze with their critical text analysis methods. They do not define their field and what it is good for or provide specific examples of its application. Chapter 13 by Sterne is delightful, the high point of the book.