arXiv:2506.14836cs.SIcs.CL2025-06被引 3

用拓扑方法分析新闻叙事,发现重大事件会突然改变公众讨论结构。

Detecting Narrative Shifts through Persistent Structures: A Topological Analysis of Media Discourse

  • 通过词组共现图与持久同调分析叙事结构变化
  • 重大事件后H0和H1维度出现明显突增,显示叙事重组
  • 可实时检测危机中的注意力转向,适合社会计算研究

如何识别全球事件是否彻底重塑公众话语?本研究提出一种基于持久同调的拓扑框架,用于检测媒体叙事中的结构性变化。基于俄乌战争(2022年2月)、乔治·弗洛伊德遇害(2020年5月)、美国国会山暴乱(2021年1月)及哈马斯对以色列入侵(2023年10月)等重大事件的国际新闻文本,构建每日名词短语共现图,经Vietoris-Rips过滤生成持久性图谱,计算不同同调维下的Wasserstein距离与持久熵。结果表明,重大地缘政治与社会事件均伴随H0(连通分支)与H1(环)的显著上升,反映叙事结构与连贯性的剧烈重构。交叉相关分析显示,通常组件级变化(H0)先于高阶模式变化(H1),呈现自下而上的语义演变;但俄乌战争中H1熵领先于H0,可能体现自上而下的叙事引导。持久熵进一步区分了聚焦型与发散型叙事状态。该方法无需预知具体事件,提供数学严谨、无监督的语义重构检测机制,推动计算社会科学在危机、抗议与信息冲击期间的实时分析能力。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

How can we detect when global events fundamentally reshape public discourse? This study introduces a topological framework for identifying structural change in media narratives using persistent homology. Drawing on international news articles surrounding major events - including the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Feb 2022), the murder of George Floyd (May 2020), the U.S. Capitol insurrection (Jan 2021), and the Hamas-led invasion of Israel (Oct 2023) - we construct daily co-occurrence graphs of noun phrases to trace evolving discourse. Each graph is embedded and transformed into a persistence diagram via a Vietoris-Rips filtration. We then compute Wasserstein distances and persistence entropies across homological dimensions to capture semantic disruption and narrative volatility over time. Our results show that major geopolitical and social events align with sharp spikes in both H0 (connected components) and H1 (loops), indicating sudden reorganization in narrative structure and coherence. Cross-correlation analyses reveal a typical lag pattern in which changes to component-level structure (H0) precede higher-order motif shifts (H1), suggesting a bottom-up cascade of semantic change. An exception occurs during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where H1 entropy leads H0, possibly reflecting top-down narrative framing before local discourse adjusts. Persistence entropy further distinguishes tightly focused from diffuse narrative regimes. These findings demonstrate that persistent homology offers a mathematically principled, unsupervised method for detecting inflection points and directional shifts in public attention - without requiring prior knowledge of specific events. This topological approach advances computational social science by enabling real-time detection of semantic restructuring during crises, protests, and information shocks.

拓扑分析叙事检测公共话语信息冲击

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