epistemological behaviors,Which study of social relations among a set of actors. It is a field of study -- a set of phenomena or data which we seek to understand.
"SNA can be defined as the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, computers, or other information- or knowledge-processing entities."
Social network analysis is the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, computers, URLs, and other connected information/knowledge entities. The nodes in the network are the people and groups while the links show relationships or flows between the nodes. SNA provides both a visual and a mathematical analysis of human relationships.
To understand networks and their participants, we evaluate the location of actors in the network. Measuring the network location is finding the centrality of a node. These measures give us insight into the various roles and groupings in a network -- who are the connectors, mavens, leaders, bridges, isolates, where are the clusters and who is in them, who is in the core of the network, and who is on the periphery?
There are three parameters tp identify key/central nodes in network.
DEGREE: How many people can this person reach directly?
Degree centrality
-A node's in or out degree is the number of links that lead into or out of the node
-Often used as measure of a node's degree of connectedness and hence also influence and/or popularity
BETWEENESS:How likely is this person to be the most direct route between two people in the networl?
Betweeness centrality
-The number of shortest paths that pass through a node divided by all shortest paths in the network
-Sometimes normalized such that the highest value is 1
-Shows which nodes are more likely to be in communication paths betwwen other nodes.
CLOSENESS:How fast can this person reach everyone in the network?
Closeness centrality
-the mean length of all shortest paths from a node to all other nodes in the network
-It is a measure of reach,i.e.how long it will take to reach other nodes from a given starting node
-Lower values are better when higher speed is desirable
Social network analysis methods provide some useful tools for addressing one of the most important,aspects of social structure: the sources and distribution of power. The network perspective suggests that the power of individual actors is not an individual attribute, but arises from their relations with others. Whole social structures may also be seen as displaying high levels or low levels of power as a result of variations in the patterns of ties among actors. And, the degree of inequality or concentration of power in a population may be indexed.
Power arises from occupying advantageous positions in networks of relations. Three basic sources of advantage are high degree, high closeness, and high betweenness. In simple structures (such as the star, circle, or line), these advantages tend to covary. In more complex and larger networks, there can be considerable disjuncture between these characteristics of a position-- so that an actor may be located in a position that is advantageous in some ways, and disadvantageous in others.
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ReplyDeleteSorry, I found a mistake in my previous comment and I removed it and I'm giving it again now ...
ReplyDeleteThe map gives me a direct view of the position of everyone in the network and the concepts defined in SNA give me a more confirmed way to view everyone's position. While I think the function is not only finding the important ones. It's about everyone's orientation, and everyone will get a position after performing such analysis. And there comes another issue which maybe have something to be talked. That's the one discussed in my first blog: Every user use the social network in a different way and everyone will get what he wants.
Sorry for the misoperation before. Good night ~~~ ^^
I agree with your point that DEGREE & BETWEENESS & CLOSENESS are good measures and they give us insight into the various roles and groupings in a network. I think these figures are really meaningful supplements for sociogram. However, calculating these parameters manually is just too complex and easy to make some mistakes. So do you know is there any software or other tool could help with this task?
ReplyDeleteYou have provide us a clear explanation of degree betweeness or closeness. The obscure definition turns to be easy to comprehend. Thank you for that.
ReplyDeleteThis map of course has significant effects to our social networking relationship. for instance....I found that it seems like I am an outsider of this class...hoping give comments can compensate this distance between I and the class.- -
Your explanation is pretty useful and expresses an easier way to understand the lecture content in the class. Just as you say, SNA provides both a visual and a mathematical analysis of human relationships. However，I do not believe that the network location graph is the critic standard to measure who is in the core of the network, and who is on the periphery. It is due to the face that it just analyzes the circle of participants who take part in this class. But social networking is not limited and could be widely spread. The friends are from other countries and areas could not be ignored, and might be they have commented the blog and join the social community as well. Therefore, the method is not scientific enough. I am confirmed that the clever you could think up with the better and easier way to calculate.
ReplyDeleteWow it seems a lot of us share the same topic.
ReplyDeleteYou added some in-depth thoughts about a larger network, which I didn't think about.
You are absolutely right about the dynamic role of a character in a group, as well as the inconsistent significance it has among the whole group. Similar to what I conceived, these three factors defines three factors of an actor, from three different perspective. Yet these three perspective should be combined together before we really investigate the role of a person. Maybe we can come up with a model to quantify the significance of a person by dynamically combining these three evaluation qualities?
haha sounds fun!
Since we are all interested in the SNA, as for me, what interests me most is the mathematics part to calculate the degree centrality, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality. What you mentioned are exactly the meanings of these three properties. Like Ling Luo comments, "They give us insight into the various roles and groupings in a network."
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to study SNA! Thank you for explaining so much in detail which indeed inspire me a lot!
You explain the definition of three types of centrality in a clear way. These parameters provide us simple and scientific references to evaluate a SNA structure. Based on that, SNA company could collect useful information by relevant software. Then social networking companies would develop reasoningly to meet the requirements of users.
ReplyDeleteYour article has a complete description to centrality of social network analysis. Your explain helps me to have a deeper and clear understanding of SNA. Also the application of social network analysis is also a useful tool. As you have said that power arises from occupying advantageous positions in networks of relations, you have given a suitable example-an actor may be located in a position that is advantageous in some ways, and disadvantageous in others. So let's say every sword has two edges. And make the best use of our technology!
ReplyDeleteI like the way how you explain the definitions of different concept---"How many people can this person reach directly?";"How likely is this person to be the most direct route between two people in the networl?""How fast can this person reach everyone in the network?". That's exactly what SNA has presented to us.Although the math processing appears boring, the final outcome, the graph of topology can really help us gain a greater grasp of how we are connected, what roles we are playing and even behaving habit of others in a certain network.
ReplyDeleteWell explained the social network analysis. Not only the basic definition and description are given, parameters to identify key nodes - Degree, Betweeness and Closeness are also detailed illustrated. This essay makes readers know much more about SNA after reading.
ReplyDeletequite a nice work:)
ReplyDeleteit's easy to understand how to calculate them, but i think, it's also would be useful if we know how to use them
I was shocked by this coz I'd thought our teacher was monitoring our activities in such a convenient way XDDD This is really useful in doing research.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is really businesslike, I clearly understand how to calculate the centrality after read it. These parameters effectively help us analyse the social networking structure. From your analysis, we know that based on these theories, social networking companies could generate its market strategy by using SNA.
ReplyDeleteYou have a special insight of the concept of centrality in SNA theory. Your explanation of different types centrality is very precise and definite, which gave me a better understand of what professor had taught in class.
ReplyDeleteI would like to say, after read your blog, I can skip some of the lecture notes, thank you
ReplyDeletegood job, you provide a clear description of SNA theory, thanks!
ReplyDelete