Social Network Analysis - an Introduction (minus the Maths)
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Transcript of Social Network Analysis - an Introduction (minus the Maths)
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‘Social network analysis 101’(the concepts, without the maths)
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What is it?• Social network analysis is a toolkit of approaches built
on the fundamental idea that a social relationship between two people can be conceptualised as a link (‘edge’ or ‘tie’) between two people (‘nodes’, ‘vertices’ or ‘actors’)
• Depending on the relationship, this can be directed or undirected
• One mode or two mode networks
• Advantages of being able to visualise previously obscure relationships, and use graph theory to model processes
Node NodeNode
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Frequently used metrics• Network size: degree• If directed, this can be considered in terms of in-
degree and out-degree• Typically follows a power law distribution
Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Linked: The New Science of Networks.
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• But how connected are the nodes within a network?
• Density = proportion of possible connections which do exist
• A clique = a set of nodes in which all possible connections exist
• Smallest clique = a triad• Clustering coefficient, community
detection methods
Frequently used metrics
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Frequently used metrics• Positions between communities are important –
shortest paths• Betweenness centrality, structural holes, brokerage
roles
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Origins• Origins date back to early
20th century Sociology
• “[SNA] itself is neither quantitative nor qualitative, nor a combination of the two. Rather, it is structural” (Carrington, 2014, p.35)
• Interpretation of networks depends on goals and epistemology of studies
Image source: Bbuuggzz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:15th_Century_Florentine_Marriges_Data_from_Padgett_and_Ansell.pdf
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Classic studies: Milgram’s small world
• Sought to determine the average path length between two nodes in a population
• Randomly selected people in Nebraska and Kansas
• Had to forward information to someone they knew personally, with the goal of it reaching a target contact in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 64 of 296 letters reached destination
• Hops ranged from 1 to 10; average number was six
• Origin of the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’
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Classic studies: Granovetter’s jobseekers
• First published in 1973
• Interviewed 100 people to find out how they used their social networks to get new jobs
• ‘Strong ties’ are close friends, highly connected to ego and often each other; ‘weak ties’ are less frequently met, acquaintances
• Acquaintances more frequently the source of information leading to new jobs; weak ties more likely to provide novel information
• ‘The strength of weak ties’
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Classic studies: Burt’s brokerage
• Elaborated on links between structural characteristics of networks and links to social capital
• Social capital: “networks together with shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate co-operation within or among groups” (OECD definition)
• ‘Structural holes’ as gaps between communities which could be usefully exploited
• ‘Brokers’ as key nodes which mediate flow of information between otherwise unconnected communities
• Nodes which are positioned between different communities can have advantages and disadvantages in terms of social capital
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SNA in the era of Big Data• Networks everywhere?
• But how valid are the links? • Automated network extraction does not account
for context.• Unlike genes or hyperlinks, people have agency.
• E.g. are all your Facebook friends equally important to you?
• -> Importance of mixed methods to validate understanding
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Some considerations• Which level of network to focus on?
• Directed or undirected?
• One-mode or two-mode?
• Can learn from small networks too.
• If using statistical tests, bear in mind that many metrics don’t follow a normal distribution (e.g. power laws).
• How relationships (edges) are defined, and how confident you can be in the accuracy of what they represent, is essential.
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Getting data into Gephi
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Benefits of using Gephi• It’s free
• Works on both PCs and Macs
• Various plugins are available – e.g. export as web pages, fix nodes to geographical co-ordinates
• Active community for support online
• Relatively user friendly
• Attractive visualisations
• Can export in various formats to other packages - .gexf or .gml as a good lingua franca
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What Gephi needs• An edges table
• A nodes table (optional)
• You can enter this manually, or import data as .csv files
• An edges table is a .csv file with two columns: ‘source’ and ‘target’