Beyond Sentiment: How Social Network Analytics Can Enhance Opinion Mining and Sentiment Analysis

The web is composed of a multitude of sources. The differences between these sources are as vast as night and day. There are some key differences among them, and an accurate understanding of what they are can help to define more efficient ways to analyze the rich information they contain. This chapter introduces the psychological and sociological processes underlying social network interactions, which will be discussed within the framework of relevant theoretical constructs and methods of analysis (with a special focus on social network analysis). This chapter will highlight the differences and specific features that characterize online social network dynamics and then point out how this understanding can be effectively integrated into traditional sentiment analysis methodological approaches to empower their reliability and validity.