30. A method to enable improved analysis and use of sociological data, the method comprising: identifying causal relationships between a plurality of documents; identifying a plurality of characteristics of a communication, including a modality used, actors involved, and proximate events of relevance; enabling a user to query based on all of the characteristics available; and time slicing data by creating substantially equal increments of time within a time interval of interest specified by the user, and creating a snapshot image for each time increment to provide a depiction of data for the user.
30. A method to enable improved analysis and use of sociological data, the method comprising: identifying causal relationships between a plurality of documents; identifying a plurality of characteristics of a communication, including a modality used, actors involved, and proximate events of relevance; enabling a user to query based on all of the characteristics available; and time slicing data by creating substantially equal increments of time within a time interval of interest specified by the user, and creating a snapshot image for each time increment to provide a depiction of data for the user. 31. The method of claim 30 , wherein the snapshots are presented as one of the following: a set of thumbnail images, a matrix of images aligned vertically by time period, or in a sequential fashion as a movie.