A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes. A virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as Newsletters Social structure is a term frequently used in Sociology and Social theory — yet rarely defined or clearly conceptualised (Abercrombie et al A personal and cultural value is a Relative ethic value, an assumption upon which implementation can be extrapolated VisiCorp 's VisiOn was a short-lived but influential Graphical user interface -based Operating environment program for IBM PC compatible An idea is a form (such as a Thought) formed by Consciousness (including Mind) through the Process of ideation. The field of finance refers to the concepts of Time, Money and Risk and how they are interrelated Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more beings Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin through either biological cultural or historical descent Conflict is a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of Needs values and interests Trade is the willing exchange of goods, services, or both Trade is also called Commerce. WEB is a Computer programming system created by Donald E Knuth as the first implementation of what he called " Literate programming " the Human sexual behavior or different human sexual practices encompass a wide range of activities such as strategies to find or attract partners ( Mating and display In Medicine, transmission is the passing of a Disease from an infected individual or group to a previously uninfected individual or group Epidemiology is the study of factors affecting the Health and Illness of populations and serves as the foundation and Logic of interventions made in the An airline provides air transport services for Passengers or Freight, generally with a recognized operating certificate or license The resulting structures are often very complex. Topology ( Greek topos, "place" and logos, "study" is the branch of Mathematics that studies the properties of In the context of Network theory, a complex network is a network ( graph) with non-trivial Topological features&mdashfeatures that do not
Social network analysis views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. A node is an abstract basic unit used to build linked Data structures such as trees, Linked lists and computer-based representations of graphs There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.
In its simplest form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being studied. The network can also be used to determine the social capital of individual actors. Social capital is a concept in business economics, Organizational behaviour, Political science, Public health, Sociology and natural These concepts are often displayed in a social network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines.
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Social network analysis (related to network theory) has emerged as a key technique in modern sociology, anthropology, sociolinguistics, geography, social psychology, communication studies, information science, organizational studies, economics, and biology as well as a popular topic of speculation and study. Network theory is an area of Applied mathematics and part of Graph theory. Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of Society, including cultural norms expectations and context on the way Language is used Geography (from Greek γεωγραφία - geografia) is the study of the Earth and its lands features inhabitants and phenomena Social psychology is the study of how people and groups interact Communication studies is an Academic field that deals with processes of communication commonly defined as the sharing of Symbols over distances in space and time Information science is an interdisciplinary science primarily concerned with the collection classification, manipulation storage retrieval and dissemination Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Foundations of modern biology There are five unifying principles
People have used the social network metaphor for over a century to connote complex sets of relationships between members of social systems at all scales, from interpersonal to international. In 1954, J. A. Barnes started using the term systematically to denote patterns of ties that cut across the concepts traditionally used by the public and social scientists: bounded groups (e. In Sociology, a group can be defined as two or more Humans that interact with one another accept expectations and obligations as members of the group and share a g. , tribes, families) and social categories (e. Categorization is the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. g. , gender, ethnicity). Scholars such as S. D. Berkowitz, Stephen Borgatti, Ronald Burt, Kathleen Carley, Katherine Faust, Linton Freeman, Mark Granovetter, David Knoke, Peter Marsden, Nicholas Mullins, Anatol Rapoport, Stanley Wasserman, Barry Wellman, Douglas R. White, and Harrison White expanded the use of social networks. Ronald S Burt is the Hobart W Williams Professor of Sociology and Strategy at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Kathleen M Carley is an American social scientist specializing in Dynamic network analysis. Mark Granovetter is an American Sociologist who has created some of the most influential theories in modern sociology since the 1970s Anatol Rapoport (Анато́лий Бори́сович Рапопо́рт born May 22 1911 - January 20 2007) was a Russian born Barry Wellman, FRSC (born 1942 directs NetLab as the SD Clark Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. Douglas R White ( 1942) is an American complexity researcher, social anthropologist, sociologist, and Social network researcher Harrison Colyar White is the Giddings Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. [1]
Social network analysis has now moved from being a suggestive metaphor to an analytic approach to a paradigm, with its own theoretical statements, methods, social network analysis software, and researchers. Social network analysis software is used to identify represent analyze visualize or simulate nodes (e Analysts reason from whole to part; from structure to relation to individual; from behavior to attitude. They either study whole networks, all of the ties containing specified relations in a defined population, or personal networks, the ties that specified people have, such as their "personal communities". [2]
Several analytic tendencies distinguish social network analysis: [3]
The shape of a social network helps determine a network's usefulness to its individuals. Smaller, tighter networks can be less useful to their members than networks with lots of loose connections (weak ties) to individuals outside the main network. In Mathematical sociology, interpersonal ties are defined as information-carrying connections between people More open networks, with many weak ties and social connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities to their members than closed networks with many redundant ties. In other words, a group of friends who only do things with each other already share the same knowledge and opportunities. A group of individuals with connections to other social worlds is likely to have access to a wider range of information. It is better for individual success to have connections to a variety of networks rather than many connections within a single network. Similarly, individuals can exercise influence or act as brokers within their social networks by bridging two networks that are not directly linked (called filling structural holes). [4]
The power of social network analysis stems from its difference from traditional social scientific studies, which assume that it is the attributes of individual actors -- whether they are friendly or unfriendly, smart or dumb, etc. -- that matter. Social network analysis produces an alternate view, where the attributes of individuals are less important than their relationships and ties with other actors within the network. This approach has turned out to be useful for explaining many real-world phenomena, but leaves less room for individual agency, the ability for individuals to influence their success, because so much of it rests within the structure of their network.
Social networks have also been used to examine how organizations interact with each other, characterizing the many informal connections that link executives together, as well as associations and connections between individual employees at different organizations. For example, power within organizations often comes more from the degree to which an individual within a network is at the center of many relationships than actual job title. Social networks also play a key role in hiring, in business success, and in job performance. Networks provide ways for companies to gather information, deter competition, and collude in setting prices or policies. Collusion is an agreement usually secretive which occurs between two or more persons to deceive mislead or defraud others of their legal rights or to obtain an objective forbidden [5]
A summary of the progress of social networks and social network analysis has been written by Linton Freeman. [6]
Precursors of social networks in the late 1800s include Émile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies. Émile Durkheim ( April 15, 1858 – November 15, 1917) was a French Sociologist whose contributions were instrumental Ferdinand Tönnies ( July 26, 1855, near Oldenswort ( Eiderstedt, North Frisia) - April 9, 1936, Kiel Tönnies argued that social groups can exist as personal and direct social ties that either link individuals who share values and belief (gemeinschaft) or impersonal, formal, and instrumental social links (gesellschaft). Durkheim gave a non-individualistic explanation of social facts arguing that social phenomena arise when interacting individuals constitute a reality that can no longer be accounted for in terms of the properties of individual actors. He distinguished between a traditional society – "mechanical solidarity" – which prevails if individual differences are minimized, and the modern society – "organic solidarity" – that develops out of cooperation between differentiated individuals with independent roles.
Georg Simmel, writing at the turn of the twentieth century, was the first scholar to think directly in social network terms. Georg Simmel (March 1 1858 &ndash September 28 1918 was one of the first generation of German sociologists. The twentieth century of the Common Era began on His essays pointed to the nature of network size on interaction and to the likelihood of interaction in ramified, loosely-knit networks rather than groups (Simmel, 1908/1971).
After a hiatus in the first decades of the twentieth century, three main traditions in social networks appeared. In the 1930s, J.L. Moreno pioneered the systematic recording and analysis of social interaction in small groups, especially classrooms and work groups (sociometry), while a Harvard group led by W. Lloyd Warner and Elton Mayo explored interpersonal relations at work. Dr Jacob Levy Moreno (born Bucharest, Romania, May 18 1889; died New York, USA, May 14 Sociometry is a quantitative method for measuring social relationships William Lloyd Warner (b October 26 1898, Redlands California; d George Elton Mayo ( December 26, 1880 - September 7, 1949) was an Australian Psychologist, Sociologist and In 1940, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown's presidential address to British anthropologists urged the systematic study of networks. Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown (born 17 January 1881 in Birmingham - died 24 October 1955 in London) was an English [7] However, it took about 15 years before this call was followed-up systematically.
Social network analysis developed with the kinship studies of Elizabeth Bott in England in the 1950s and the 1950s-1960s urbanization studies of the University of Manchester group of anthropologists (centered around Max Gluckman and later J. Clyde Mitchell) investigating community networks in southern Africa, India and the United Kingdom. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Urbanizationn (also spelled urbanisation) is the physical growth of Urban areas into rural or natural land as a result of population in-migration to an existing The University of Manchester is a " red brick " civic University located in Manchester, England. (Herman Max Gluckman ( 26 January 1911 &ndash 13 April 1975) was a South African born British social anthropologist James Clyde Mitchell (usually known as J Clyde Mitchell) ( 21 June 1918 &ndash 15 November 1995) was a British sociologist Concomittantly, British anthropologist S.F. Nadel codified a theory of social structure that was influential in later network analysis. Siegfried Frederick Nadel ( 24 April 1903 – 14 January 1956) known as Fred Nadel, was an Austrian born British [8]
In the 1960s-1970s, a growing number of scholars worked to combine the different tracks and traditions. One large group was centered around Harrison White and his students at Harvard University: Ivan Chase, Bonnie Erickson, Harriet Friedmann, Mark Granovetter, Nancy Howell, Joel Levine, Nicholas Mullins, John Padgett, Michael Schwartz and Barry Wellman. Harrison Colyar White is the Giddings Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. Mark Granovetter is an American Sociologist who has created some of the most influential theories in modern sociology since the 1970s Barry Wellman, FRSC (born 1942 directs NetLab as the SD Clark Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. White's group thought of themselves as rebelling against the reigning structural-functionalist orthodoxy of then-dominant Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons, leading them to devalue concerns with symbols, values, norms and culture. Structural functionalism also known as a social systems paradigm is a Sociological paradigm which addresses what Social functions various elements Talcott Parsons ( December 13, 1902 - May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist, who served on the faculty of Harvard University They also were opposed to the methodological individualism espoused by another Harvard sociologist, George Homans, which was endemic among the dominant survey researchers and positivists of the time. Methodological individualism is a philosophical method aimed at explaining and understanding broad society-wide developments as the aggregation of decisions by individuals George C Homans (born in Boston, Massachusetts, August 11, 1910 - died in Cambridge Massachusetts, May 29, 1989 Statistical surveys are used to collect quantitative information about items in a population Positivism is the Philosophy that the only authentic knowledge is knowledge that is based on actual sense experience Mark Granovetter and Barry Wellman are among the former students of White who have elaborated and popularized social network analysis. Mark Granovetter is an American Sociologist who has created some of the most influential theories in modern sociology since the 1970s Barry Wellman, FRSC (born 1942 directs NetLab as the SD Clark Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. [9]
White's was not the only group. Significant independent work was done by scholars elsewhere: University of California Irvine social scientists interested in mathematical applications, centered around Linton Freeman, including John Boyd, Susan Freeman, Kathryn Faust, A. Kimball Romney and Douglas White); quantitative analysts at the University of Chicago, including Joseph Galaskiewicz, Wendy Griswold, Edward Laumann, Peter Marsden, Martina Morris, and John Padgett; and communication scholars at Michigan State University, including Nan Lin and Everett Rogers. The University of California Irvine is a public Coeducational Research university situated in Irvine, California. A Kimball Romney is one of the founders of Cognitive anthropology. Douglas R White ( 1942) is an American complexity researcher, social anthropologist, sociologist, and Social network researcher The University of Chicago is a Private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Michigan State University ( MSU) is a co-educational public Research university in East Lansing, Michigan USA. Nan Lin is a professor in Sociology at Duke University. Since July 2006 he has been Oscar L Everett M Rogers ( March 6, 1931 - October 21, 2004) communications scholar pioneer of Diffusion of innovations theory writer A substantively-oriented University of Toronto sociology group developed in the 1970s, centered on former students of Harrison White: S. This article is about the University of Toronto's St George Campus D. Berkowitz, Harriet Friedmann, Nancy Leslie Howard, Nancy Howell, Lorne Tepperman and Barry Wellman, and also including noted modeler and game theorist Anatol Rapoport. Barry Wellman, FRSC (born 1942 directs NetLab as the SD Clark Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. Game theory is a branch of Applied mathematics that is used in the Social sciences (most notably Economics) Biology, Engineering, Anatol Rapoport (Анато́лий Бори́сович Рапопо́рт born May 22 1911 - January 20 2007) was a Russian born [10]
SNA and network modeling approaches have been used in epidemiology to help understand how patterns of human contact aid or inhibit the spread of diseases such as HIV in a population. Epidemiology is the study of factors affecting the Health and Illness of populations and serves as the foundation and Logic of interventions made in the The evolution of social networks can sometimes be modeled by the use of agent based models, providing insight into the interplay between communication rules, rumor spreading and social structure. A rumour or rumor (see spelling differences) is often viewed as "an unverified account or explanation of events circulating from person to person and Here is an interactive model of rumour spreading, based on rumour spreading from model on Cmol.
Diffusion of innovations theory explores social networks and their role in influencing the spread of new ideas and practices. According to Rogers(2003 "Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social System Change agents and opinion leaders often play major roles in spurring the adoption of innovations, although factors inherent to the innovations also play a role. Opinion leadership is a concept that arose out of the theory of Two-step flow of communication propounded by Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz.
Dunbar's number: The rule of 150 suggested that the typical size of a social network is constrained to about 150 members due to possible limits in the capacity of the human communication channel. See also Dunbar (disambiguation Dunbar's number is the supposed cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable social relationships The rule arises from cross-cultural studies in sociology and especially anthropology of the maximum size of a village (in modern parlance most reasonably understood as an ecovillage). Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet, but smaller than a Town or City. Ecovillages are intended to be socially economically and ecologically sustainable Intentional communities. It is theorized in evolutionary psychology that the number may be some kind of limit of average human ability to recognize members and track emotional facts about all members of a group. Evolutionary psychology ( EP) attempts to explain mental and psychological traits such as Memory, Perception, Recognition (re+ Cognition) is a process that occurs in Thinking when some event, Process, Pattern, or object recurrs However, it may be due to economics and the need to track "free riders", as it may be easier in larger groups to take advantage of the benefits of living in a community without contributing to those benefits. Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. In Economics, Collective bargaining, Psychology and Political science, "free riders" are those who consume more than their fair share of a resource
Nevertheless, even as an average person may only be able to establish a few strong ties due to possible constraints of human communication channels, Mark Granovetter found in one study that more numerous weak ties can be important in seeking information and innovation. Mark Granovetter is an American Sociologist who has created some of the most influential theories in modern sociology since the 1970s Cliques have a tendency to more homogeneous opinions as well as sharing many common traits. Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing analyzing and evaluating ideas This homophillic tendency was the reason for the members of the cliques to be attracted together in the first place. Homophily (ie love of the same is the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others However, being similar, each member of the clique would also know more or less what the other members knew. To find new information or insights, members of the clique will have to look beyond the clique to its other friends and acquaintances. This is what Granovetter called the "the strength of weak ties". Mark Granovetter is an American Sociologist who has created some of the most influential theories in modern sociology since the 1970s
Guanxi is a central concept in Chinese society (and other East Asian cultures) that can be summarized as the use of personal influence. Guānxi describes the basic dynamic in the complex nature of personalized networks of influence and social relationships and is a central concept in Chinese Guanxi can be studied from a social network approach. [11]
The small world phenomenon is the hypothesis that the chain of social acquaintances required to connect one arbitrary person to another arbitrary person anywhere in the world is generally short. The small world experiment comprised several experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram examining the Average path length for Social networks of people in A hypothesis (from Greek) consists either of a suggested explanation for a phenomenon (an event that is observable or of a reasoned proposal suggesting a possible The concept gave rise to the famous phrase six degrees of separation after a 1967 small world experiment by psychologist Stanley Milgram. Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they Year 1967 ( MCMLXVII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. Stanley Milgram ( August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was a Social psychologist at Yale In Milgram's experiment, a sample of US individuals were asked to reach a particular target person by passing a message along a chain of acquaintances. The average length of successful chains turned out to be about five intermediaries or six separation steps (the majority of chains in that study actually failed to complete). The methods (and ethics as well) of Milgram's experiment was later questioned by an American scholar, and some further research to replicate Milgram's findings had found that the degrees of connection needed could be higher. [12] Academic researchers continue to explore this phenomenon as Internet-based communication technology has supplemented the phone and postal systems available during the times of Milgram. A recent electronic small world experiment at Columbia University found that about five to seven degrees of separation are sufficient for connecting any two people through e-mail. Columbia University is a private University in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. [13]
The study of socio-technical systems is loosely linked to social network analysis, and looks at relations among individuals, institutions, objects and technologies. In Organizational development, socio-technical systems (or STS is an approach to complex organizational Work design that recognizes the interaction between
The International Network for Social Network Analysis is the professional association of social network analysis. The International Network for Social Network Analysis is the professional association of Social network analysis. Started in 1977 by sociologist Barry Wellman at the University of Toronto, it now has more than 1200 members and is now headed by George Barnett, a communication scientist at the University of Buffalo. Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" Barry Wellman, FRSC (born 1942 directs NetLab as the SD Clark Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. This article is about the University of Toronto's St George Campus State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly known as University at Buffalo (UB is a Coeducational public research University, which
Netwiki is a scientific wiki devoted to network theory, which uses tools from subjects such as graph theory, statistical mechanics, and dynamical systems to study real-world networks in the social sciences, technology, biology, etc. Network theory is an area of Applied mathematics and part of Graph theory.
There are several journals: Social Networks (including a social network map of social network scholars[16]), Connections, the Journal of Social Structure and the Network Science Report.
Network analytic tools are used to represent the nodes (agents) and edges (relationships) in a network, and to analyze the network data. Social network analysis software is used to identify represent analyze visualize or simulate nodes (e Like other software tools, the data can be saved in external files. Additional information comparing the various data input formats used by network analysis software packages is available at NetWiki. Network analysis tools allow researchers to investigate large networks like the Internet, disease transmission, etc. These tools provide mathematical functions that can be applied to the network model.
Visual representation of social networks is important to understand the network data and convey the result of the analysis [1]. Network analysis tools are used to change the layout, colors, size and advanced properties of the network representation.
Some social network tools are:
A systematic overview and comparison of a selection of software packages for social network analysis was provided by Huisman and Van Duijn (see references). A large list of software packages and libraries can be found under Computer Programs for Social Network Analysis.