So there's this guy named Burke. He says human beings use and misuse symbols (translation: we use words). Burke claims by looking at these symbols, how they're organized and grouped, and in what situations they're used we can determine meanings that are systemic in nature; we can find meanings that are implied but not explicit.
I know what you're thinking. "This crap is so boring." I disagree. This type of analysis is important in figuring out not what was said, but what was meant.
Now here's my contribution. Words=Characters=Binary. In my opinion, and without a lot of AI, it should be relatively easy to construct a web of symbols from a text, linking portions together by their constructs (i.e. phrases to particular usages of the individual words in them). It would then be possible to create a simple burkean analysis of a piece of work much larger than what has been done in the past. However, this burkean analysis could be taken further.
What happens when you begin to explore the thoughts of a group? Burkean analysis of the warbloggers? Of sports bloggers? By looking at social networks and the words they use and the way they use them (while keeping in mind that what is said is just as important as what's not said) I think we could come up with some interesting ways to study memes in the blogosphere.
Now I'm not the first to claim this task is automatable. There's a guy named Rod at the University of Texas doing similar things, only his work seems to be based on dictionaries. I'll have to download and try his stuff to see how it works.
And just like that, I'm spent. Feel free to add to the convesation if you'd like. I'd be interested to hear what people in other disciplines think.