Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of actors (such as individuals or organizations) and the dyadic ties between these actors (such as relationships, connections, or interactions). A social network perspective is employed to model the structure of a social group, how this structure influences other variables, or how structures change over time The study of these structures uses methods in social network analysis to identify influential nodes, local and global structures, and network dynamics. Social networks are distinct from information, biological, or electrical networks, but theories and methods generalizing to all of these complex
Social networks and the analysis of them is an inherently interdisciplinary academic field which emerged from social psychology, sociology, statistics, and graph theory. Georg Simmel authored early structural theories in sociology emphasizing the dynamics of triads and "web of group affiliations. Jacob Moreno is credited with developing the first sociograms in the 1930s to study interpersonal relationships as structures in which people were points and the relationships between them were drawn as connecting lines. These approaches were mathematically formalized in the 1950s and theories and methods of social networks became pervasive in the social and behavioral sciences by the 1980s.
Overview
A social network is a theoretical construct useful in the social sciences to study relationships between individuals, groups, organizations, or even entire societies. The term is used to describe a social structure determined by such interactions. The ties (sometimes called edges, links, or connections) in the structure are called "nodes". The nodes through which any given social unit connects represent the convergence of the various social contacts of that unit. Many kinds of relationships may form the "network" between such nodes, but interpersonal "bridges" are a defining characteristic of social networks. Social network approaches are useful for modeling and explaining many social phenomena. The theoretical approach is, necessarily, relational. An axiom of the social network approach to understanding social interaction is that social phenomena should be primarily conceived and investigated through the properties of relations between and within units, instead of the properties of these units themselves. Thus, one common criticism of social network theory is that individual agency is essentially ignored, although this is not the case in practice. Precisely because many different types of relations, singular or in combination, form into a network configuration, network analytics are useful to a broad range of research enterprises. In social science, these fields of study include, but are not limited to anthropology, biology, communication studies, economics, geography, information science, organizational studies, social psychology, sociology, and sociolinguistics. Scholars in these and other areas have used the idea of "social network" loosely for almost a century to connote complex sets of relationships between members of social units across all scales of analysis, from the local to the global as well as the scale-free.
Background
Some of the ideas of social network theory are found in writings going back to the ancient Greeks. In the late 1800s, both Émile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies foreshadow the idea of social networks in their theories and research of social groups. Tönnies argued that social groups can exist as personal and direct social ties that either link individuals who share values and belief or impersonal, formal, and instrumental social links,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. Georg Simmel, writing at the turn of the twentieth century, pointed to the nature of networks and the effect of network size on interaction and examined the likelihood of interaction in loosely-knit networks rather than groups.
Major developments in the field can be seen in the 1930s by several groups in psychology, anthropology, and mathematics working independently. In psychology, in the 1930s, Jacob L. Moreno began systematic recording and analysis of social interaction in small groups, especially classrooms and work groups. In anthropology, the foundation for social network theory is the theoretical and ethnographic work of Bronislaw Malinowski, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, and Claude Lévi-Strauss. A group of social anthropologists associated with Max Gluckman and the Manchester School, including John A. Barnes, J. Clyde Mitchell and Elizabeth Bott Spillius, often are credited with performing some of the first fieldwork from which network analyses were performed. In sociology, the early (1930s) work of Talcott Parsons set the stage for taking a relational approach to understanding social structure. Later, drawing upon Parsons' theory, the work of sociologist Peter Blau provides a strong impetus for analyzing the relational ties of social units with his work on social exchange theory. By the latter 1900s, a growing number of scholars worked to combine the different tracks and traditions. One group consisted of sociologist Harrison White and his students at the Harvard University Department of Social Relations. Mark Granovetter and Barry Wellmanare among the former students of White who elaborated and championed the analysis of social networks.
Levels of analysis
Self-organization of a network, based on Nagler, Levina, & Timme, (2011)
In general, social networks are self-organizing, emergent, and complex, such that a globally coherent pattern appears from the local interaction of the elements that make up the system. These patterns become more apparent as network size increases. However, a global network analysis of, for example, all interpersonal relationships in the world—or even one global region—is not feasible and is likely to contain so much information as to be uninformative. Thus, social networks are analyzed by the number and type of relationships relevant to the researcher's theoretical question. Such analyses can be delimited according to theory such that a specific set of persons whose relationships are to be analyzed fall within a specific scale or, again according to theory, may be targeted to analyzing specific types of relationships and be scale-free. Although levels of analysis are not necessarily mutually exclusive, there are three general levels into which networks may fall: micro-level, meso-level or middle-range, and macro-level.
Micro level
At the micro-level, social network research typically begins with an individual, snowballing as social relationships are traced, or may begin with a small group of individuals in a particular social context.
Social network diagram, micro-level.
Actor level
The smallest unit of analysis in a social network is an individual in their social setting, i.e., an "actor". Actor-centered network analysis often centers on network characteristics such as centrality, prestige and roles such as isolates, liaisons, and bridges. Such analyses, sometimes referred to as ego-centric or ego networks, are most commonly used in the fields of psychology or social pyschology, ethnographic kinship analysis or other genealogical studies of relationships between individuals.
Dyadic level
Simply put, a dyad is a social relationship between two individuals. Network research on dyads may concentrate on structure of the relationship, social equality, and tendencies toward reciprocity.
Triadic level
Add one individual to a dyad, and you have a triad. Research at this level may concentrate on factors such as balance and transitivity, as well as social equality and tendencies toward reciprocity.
Subset level
Subset levels of network research problems begin at the micro-level, but may crossover into the meso-level of analysis. Subset level research may focus on distance and reachability, cliques, cohesive subgroups, or other group action, group actions or behavior.
Meso level
In general, meso-level theories begin with a population size that falls between the micro- and macro-levels. However, meso-level may also refer to analyses that are specifically designed to reveal connections between micro- and macro-levels. Meso-level networks are low density and may exhibit causal processes distinct from interpersonal micro-level networks.
Social network diagram, meso-level
Organizations
Formal organizations are social groups that distribute tasks for a collective goal. There are a variety of legal types of organizations, including: corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, armed forces, charities, not-for-profit corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, and universities. A hybrid organization is a body that operates in both the public sector and the private sector, simultaneously fulfilling public duties and developing commercial market activities. As a result the hybrid organization becomes a mixture of a government and a corporate organization. Network research on organizations may focus on either intra-organizational or inter-organizational ties in terms of formal or informal relationships.
Randomly-distributed networks
Exponential random graph models of social networks became state-of-the-art methods of social network analysis in the 1980s. This framework has the capacity to represent social-structural effects commonly observed in many human social networks, including general degree-based structural effects commonly observed in many human social networks as well as reciprocity and transitivity, and at the node-level, homophily and attribute-based activity and popularity effects, as derived from explicit hypotheses about dependencies among network ties. Parameters are given in terms of the prevalence of small subgraph configurations in the network and can be interpreted as describing the combinations of local social processes from which a given network emerges. These probability models for networks on a given set of actors allow generalization beyond the restrictive dyadic independence assumption of micro-networks, allowing models to be built from theoretical structural foundations of social behavior.
Examples of a random network and a scale-free network. Each graph has 32 nodes and 32 links. Note the "hubs" in the scale-free diagram (on the right).
Scale-free networks
A scale-free network is a network whose degree distribution follows a power law, at least asymptotically. In network theory a scale-free ideal network is a random network with a degree distribution that unravels the size distribution of social groups. Specific characteristics of scale-free networks vary with the theories and analytical tools used to create them, however, in general, scale-free networks have some common characteristics. One notable characteristic in a scale-free network is the relative commonness of vertices with a degree that greatly exceeds the average. The highest-degree nodes are often called "hubs", and may serve specific purposes in their networks, although this depends greatly on the social context. Another general characteristic of scale-free networks is the clustering coefficient distribution, which decreases as
Complex networks
Most larger social networks display features of social complexity, which involves substantial non-trivial features of network topology, with patterns of complex connections between elements that are neither purely regular nor purely random, as do biological, and technological networks. Such complex network features include a heavy tail in the degree distribution, a high clustering coefficient, assortativity or disassortativity among vertices, community structure, and hierarchical structure.
In the case of agency-directed networks these features also include reciprocity, triad significance profile (TSP, see network motif), and other features. In contrast, many of the mathematical models of networks that have been studied in the past, such as lattices and random graphs, do not show these features.
Communications
Communication Studies are often considered a part of both the social sciences and the humanities, drawing heavily on fields such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, information science, biology, political science, and economics as well as rhetoric, literary studies, and semiotics. Many communications concepts describe the transfer of information from one source to another, and can thus be conceived of in terms of a network.
Community
In J.A. Barnes' day, a "community" referred to a specific geographic location and studies of community ties had to do with who talked, associated, traded, and attended church with whom.
Today, however, there are extended "online" communities developed through telecommunications devices and social network services. Such devices and services require extensive and ongoing maintenance and analysis, often using network science methods. Community development studies, today, also make extensive use of such methods.
Criminal networks
In criminology and urban sociology, much attention has been paid to the social networks among criminal actors. For example, Andrew Papachristos has studied gang murders as a series of exchanges between gangs. Murders can be seen to diffuse outwards from a single source, because weaker gangs cannot afford to kill members of stronger gangs in retaliation, but must commit other violent acts to maintain their reputation for strength.
Demography
In demography, the study of social networks has led to new sampling methods for estimating and reaching populations that are hard to enumerate (for example, homeless people or intravenous drug users.) For example, respondent driven sampling is a network-based sampling technique that relies on respondents to a survey recommending further respondents.
Social capital
Social capital is a sociological concept which refers to the value of social relations and the role of cooperation and confidence to achieve positive outcomes.
The term refers to the value one can get from their social ties. For example, newly arrived immigrants can make use of their social ties to established migrants to acquire jobs they may otherwise have trouble getting (e.g., because of lack of knowledge of language). Studies show that there a positive relationship between social capital and the intensity of social network use.[35]
Structural Holes
Structural holes refer to the absence of ties between two parts of a network. Finding and exploiting a structural hole can give an entrepreneur a competitive advantage.
For example, a unique combination of business ties can allow them to combine expertise from two otherwise disconnected fields to create novel products. They can also act as brokers, reaping a reward from mediating trade between the communities. This concept was developed by sociologist Ronald Burt, and is sometimes referred to as an alternate conception of social capital (above).
Social Networking's Good and Bad Impacts On Kids
Social media present risks and benefits to children but parents who try to secretly monitor their kids' activities online are wasting their time, according to a presentation at the 119th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.In a plenary talk entitled, "Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids," Rosen discussed potential adverse effects, including:
He encouraged parents to assess their child's activities on social networking sites, and discuss removing inappropriate content or connections to people who appear problematic. Parents also need to pay attention to the online trends and the latest technologies, websites and applications children are using, he said.
"Communication is the crux of parenting. You need to talk to your kids, or rather, listen to them," Rosen said. "The ratio of parent listen to parent talk should be at least five-to-one. Talk one minute and listen for five."
One of the Examples of social networkin is the most active and the most popular social networking site:
Face book
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook Inc. As of April 2012, Facebook has more than 900 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other. Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site.[7]Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The Web site's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over. However, according to a May 2011 Consumer Reports survey, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts and 5 million under 10, violating the site's terms of service.
A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users. Entertainment Weekly included the site on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?" Quantcast estimates Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May 2011. According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account. Nevertheless, Facebook's market growth started to stall in some regions, with the site losing 7 million active users in the United States and Canada in May 2011. Facebook filed for an initial public offering on February 1, 2012. Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information, and other personal information. Users can communicate with friends and other users through private or public messages and a chat feature. They can also create and join interest groups and "like pages" (called "fan pages" until April 19, 2010), some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising. A 2012 Pew Internet and American Life study identified that between 20–30% of Facebook users are "power users" who frequently link, poke, post and tag themselves and others. To allay concerns about privacy, Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile. The Web site is free to users, and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads. Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture (if applicable) to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings.
Crticism of facebook:
Facebook has met with controversies. It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including the People's Republic of China, Iran, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Syria, and Bangladesh on different bases. For example, it was banned in many countries of the world on the basis of allowed content judged as anti-Islamic and containing religious discrimination. It has also been banned at many workplaces to prevent employees from using it during work hours. The privacy of Facebook users has also been an issue, and the safety of user accounts has been compromised several times. Facebook has settled a lawsuit regarding claims over source code and intellectual property. In May 2011 emails were sent to journalists and bloggers making critical allegations about Google's privacy policies; however it was later discovered that the anti-Google campaign, conducted by PR giant Burson-Marsteller, was paid for by Facebook in what CNN referred to as "a new level skullduggery" and which Daily Beast called a "clumsy smear".In July 2011 German authorities began to discuss the prohibition of events organized on Facebook. The decision is based on several cases of overcrowding by people not originally invited. In one instance, 1,600 "guests" attended the 16th birthday party for a Hamburg girl who accidentally posted the invitation for the event as public. After reports of overcrowding, more than a hundred police were deployed for crowd control. A policeman was injured and eleven participants were arrested for assault, property damage and resistance to authorities. In another unexpectedly overcrowded event, 41 young people were arrested and at least 16 injured.
Face book time line
Facebook Timeline is a radical new profile page design that Facebook will launch around the end of September 2011. It was announced by Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook's F8 conference following an introduction from SNL's Andy Samberg.Facebook Timeline changes the default profile from a list of your most recent updates to a complete summary of your entire life since birth. It includes photos, videos, status updates and locations you have visited. The new Facebook profile is divided into two main columns, with a line down the middle representing the passage of time. Users are encouraged to add life events which were not captured by Facebook, particularly those that occurred before the person joined Facebook. Timeline uses an algorithm to assess the most important moments of your life, which can then be edited to your satisfaction. Unwanted updates can be hidden from the Timeline.
The new profile pages are thought to constitute one of Facebook's most extreme redesigns so far, completely reimagining what a social networking profile can be. Timeline also means that Facebook now bears fewer similarities to Google+, a social network from Google which currently uses the standard format of showing the most recent updates first.
Facebook made Timeline available for testing on September 22, 2011. The response to the new layout has been mixed, with Mashable editor Lance Ulanoff penning an article entitled "Facebook Timeline, Zuckerberg's Biggest Gamble Yet". Charlie White, meanwhile, praised the changes in an article titled: Why I Love the New Facebook Timeline".
Criticisms of Facebook Timeline include claims that by requesting users "complete" their profiles, Facebook is seeking to capture more user data to make its service more appealing to advertisers. Others have expressed concerns about Facebook Timeline's ability to surface information about a person that was previously hard to access, and that Facebook's encouragement to add your date of birth to your profile (among other incentives to add additional personal information) may encourage identity theft.
Facebook Timeline has yet to be launched to all of its 800 million users.
