A few others have pointed out the origin of the name generator technique, such as Coleman, Laumann and Wellman. If you are interested in Laumann's instrument, you can find it from his journal article (in one of the footnote). Fischer's approach is also very important and need to be mentioned here.
Laumann, E. O., & Pappi, F. U. (1973). New Directions in the Study of Community Elites. American Sociological Review, 38(2), 212-230. Fischer, C. S. (1982). To Dwell Among Friends: Personal Networks in Town and City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
In my opinion, the “name generator”,as the name describing this technique, came to light when Burt used the “important matters” question in the General Social Survey. Here are the three articles detailing the development of the question, and how it was used.
Burt, R. S. (1984). Network Items in the General Social Survey. Social Networks, 6(4), 293-339. Burt, R. S. (1985). General Social Survey Network Items. Connections, 8, 119-123. Marsden, P. V. (1987). Core Discussion Networks of Americans. American Sociological Review, 52(1), 122-131.
Note that some researchers (such as Fischer) prefer using multiple questions to elicit social ties in one's personal networks than using just one question. See Marsden (2003) and Marin and Hampton (2007) for more details.
Marsden, P. V. (2003). Interviewer effects in measuring network size using a single name generator. [doi: DOI: 10.1016/S0378-8733(02)00009-6]. Social Networks, 25(1), 1-16.
As you could imagine, the difference in wording (i.e. the criteria of the personal network of interest) would lead research participants to report different types of social ties. Comparing generated personal networks across studies may be difficult. One of the first study that seeks to find out whether there is any commonalty between different name generators is Campbell and Lee (1991).
Campbell, K. E., & Lee, B. A. (1991). Name generators in surveys of personal networks. [doi: DOI: 10.1016/0378-8733(91)90006-F]. Social Networks, 13(3), 203-221.
Finally, to the original question, I think it is nice to be able to find some benchmark from UK's Government Statistical Service, and say something about how good your results are. But I don't think “direct” comparison is necessary or appropriate. My main concern is the original wording of the question.
Strictly speaking, it is a “triple-barrel” question: it asked respondents to recall and report three different types of social ties. And respondents only answered the question once. If you break down the question and ask respondents to report these three types of social ties separately (i.e. Fischer's approach), you will definitely obtain a larger personal network size. See Hlebec et al (2006). for an recent example.
Hlebec, V., Manfreda, K. L., & Vehovar, V. (2006). The social support networks of internet users. New Media & Society, 8(1), 9-32.
Hope this helps,
Patrick
For an older paper see: Social relations and innovation in the medical profession: the epidemiology of a new drug. H Menzel, E Katz - Public Opinion Quarterly, 1955
Vlado
One of the first studies that used affective and/or role relation criteria as name generators was the 1966 Detroit Area Study (Laumann 1973). He asked respondents to name their three “best friends”. Wellman's 1979 study asked about “persons outside your home that you feel closest to”.
Laumann EO. Bonds of pluralism: the form and substance of urban social networks. New York: Wiley, 1973. http://www.getcited.org/pub/101325959
Wellman B. The community question: the intimate networks of East Yorkers. AJS 1979;84:1201-31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2778222
I'm not quite sure if this will be useful, but the General Social Survey in the U.S. (currently out of the U of Chicago and funded by the NSF) has used questions of this type for decades. http://www3.norc.org/GSS+Website/
The Framingham Heart Study is also considered foundational in the use of name generators for personal social network research. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600606/
Bruno,
Yes, RTs are important Twitter links, as are @ tweets (conversations) on Twitter. IMHO, looking at follower/following is useless at best, misleading at worst – so many false followers. Remember GIGO.
Conversations can often be captured in specific twitter chats on topics that attract those of similar interests. Here is a quick SNA I did of a conversation on “serendipity” amongst those interested in “innovation”. This is just a quick peek at the group as it was structured on that day and on that topic. (I have more data on this group and will do a more in-depth look at some future date).
http://www.thenetworkthinkers.com/2013/02/arrows-on-twitter.html
Of course, this was not the only convo on serendipity on Twitter, and many who had an interest in this topic did not know the convo was going on.
Wincent,
I would look on Twitter where your NGO groups are active… do they partake in Twitter Chats? If so, do not do your own data gathering… Twitter only provides limited data via their API. Find an organization that gets data from the Twitter “fire hose” (all of the data). I have used Socialping, Inc. http://socialping.com and was happy with their timeliness and competence. Then they can filter the data with your list of NGOs … looking for @ conversations, RTs, MTs, and HTs. This should give you a good first draft to start with.
Good Luck!
Valdis Krebs http://orgnet.com http://thenetworkthinkers.com Ian:
The earliest empirical name generator work I'm aware of is Coleman and Katz's diffusion study:
Coleman, James, Elihu Katz, and Herbert Menzel. “The diffusion of an innovation among physicians.” *Sociometry* 20, no. 4 (1957): 253-270.
Coleman talked more generally about it later: Coleman, James S. “Relational analysis: the study of social organizations with survey methods.” *Human Organization* 17, no. 4 (1958): 28-36.
Jim Ronggui,
You might look at this one:
Playing in the Same Twitter Network: Political information seeking in the 2010 US gubernatorial elections Itai Himelboim, Derek Hansen & Anne Bowser http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2012.706316#.UZJSTLXijK0
A reasonable approach to understanding what a “Follow” relationship means is to consider it from the perspective of the person following the another account. When doing so, it quickly becomes clear that there are many factors at play. For example, it's clear that if I follow some account I am “aware” of it (though there are some accounts I don't follow that I'm aware of, so this is only part of the story). If I'm an active user who actually reads Tweets that come to my stream then I follow accounts so that I can receive information from them (i.e., “information flow”). Finally, since my Follow network is public, there is a sense in which I may Follow accounts of organizations that I tend to agree with or at least that wouldn't reflect poorly on my “identity”. In some yet-to-be-published work Jen Golbeck and I have some evidence that, on average, people tend to follow politicians who they agree with (as opposed to those who they don't agree with), perhaps for all of the reasons listed above or some subset of them.
I agree with Bruno that Re-tweet and Mention networks are more indicative of active connections between people. Inevitably, the follow networks are much more dense than those networks (as you can see on many of Marc Smith's Eventgraphs: e.g., http://www.nodexlgraphgallery.org/Pages/Graph.aspx?graphID=4569 )
Great question, and one that I'd love someone to tackle directly through some interviews and/or survey research about why people follow others - though I haven't looked for such an article, so I suppose it may already exist…
Derek Hansen Brigham Young University
Dear Dr. Huang,
This paper might be of interest to you:
*Partisan Asymmetries in Online Political Activity * M. Conover, B. Gonçalves, A. Flammini, F. Menczer *EPJ Data Science* *1*, 6 (2012) http://www.bgoncalves.com/component/jdownloads/finish/3/38.html
In this paper (and a couple others that you can find here: http://www.bgoncalves.com/publications.html ) we look at the follower-followee, retweet and mention networks and find that the retweet network is the most informative if you are trying to cluster users according to their political leanings (or activity, or collaboration, etc…) since a retweet implies a stronger connection (agreement) than just following or mentioning.
Best,
Bruno
Subject: [Pajek] blockmodelling medium size two-mode networks From: "Jef Vlegels" <jef.vlegels@gmail.com> Date: Thu, May 16, 2013 11:33 To: pajek@list.fmf.uni-lj.si
Is there any way to run a two-mode blockmodel on a network with more than 256 vertices (in Pajek or maybe alternative software)?
Pajek returns the error message: 'number of vertices in both modes must be lower than 256', even though calculation time is still acceptable.
Thanks
Subject: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "Valdis Krebs" <valdis@ORGNET.COM> Date: Tue, August 13, 2013 21:15
John,
Yeah, for the first iTunes phone (ROKR), design by committee (across boundaries between Apple and Motorola) probably included many weak ties. After that failure, for the iPhone, Jobs went back to his strong ties, especially Jonathon Ive, to whom he trusted many key Apple designs. Ive in turn had his own strong ties within team/company to execute the design.
The iPod was also designed by strong ties within Apple and outside of Apple… an “old strong tie” came to call on Apple – “Hey, I have an idea.”
Hey Academics… what is an “old strong tie”???
Old strong tie is where A and B worked together at Company X, but now A works at Company Y and B at Company Z (and naturally they interact less now) and they re-connect to collaborate (re-animating their prior tie) for a new product at Company Z. Is an old strong tie, even an inactive/dormant strong tie, still a “strong tie”? Or does it become a “weak tie” while in it's dormant phase???
Would love to hear many viewpoints on this!
Valdis Krebs Orgnet,LLC Twitter: orgnet http://orgnet.com http://thenetworkthinkers.com
On Aug 13, 2013, at 2:34 PM, John T. Maloney wrote:
Apple rejected the “design by committee” approach that had yielded the Motorola
ROKR E1, a largely unsuccessful collaboration with Motorola.
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "Kenny Joseph" <josephkena@GMAIL.COM> Date: Tue, August 13, 2013 21:24
While not directly referring to the concept of an “old strong tie”, Caroline Haythornthwaite provides the very useful concept of a latent tie. If I recall correctly, the term is used to distinguish social ties that may develop when a new media is introduced into a social system.
Haythornthwaite, Caroline. 2002. “Strong, Weak, and Latent Ties and the Impact of New Media.” *The Information Society* 18 (5): 385=401.
Kenny Joseph
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "Joe Labianca" <joelabianca@GMAIL.COM> Date: Tue, August 13, 2013 23:04
Hi Valdis,
I'd look at Daniel Levin's work: Levin, D. Z., Walter, J., & Murnighan, J. K. (2011). “Dormant Ties: The Value of Reconnecting<http://www.levin.rutgers.edu/research/dormant-ties-abstract.html>.” *Organization Science, 22(4),* 923-939.
Levin, D. Z., Walter, J., & Murnighan, J. K. (2011). “The Power of Reconnection — How Dormant Ties Can Surprise You<http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2011-spring/52309>.” *MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(3),* 45-50.
Joe
Giuseppe (Joe) Labianca Gatton Endowed Professor of Management Gatton College of Business & Economics LINKS Center for Social Network Analysis University of Kentucky Lexington, KY 40506 859-257-3741 (office) 404-428-4878 (mobile) http://linkscenter.org/ tinyurl.com/JoeLabianca
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@GMAIL.COM> Date: Wed, August 14, 2013 01:37
Another old, strong tie is family. Family members may scatter to the four corners of the earth and have little to do with one another. Then a central, usually senior, member dies, and the clan reassembles for the funeral. The need to cooperate in disposing of legacies may bring brothers together, who usually have little to do with each other. Quarrels over inheritances may remind us of Simmel's observation that hostility is a social tie.
While attending INSNA 2013 in Xi'an I was struck by the difference between the ideas of participants from Europe or the US and those from China. The former expounded theories grounded in the mathematics of random graphs, which ideologically speaking, coincide with market fundamentalism — autonomous actors bumping into each other and engaging in transactions. In contrast, when the Chinese talked about *guanxi,* they constantly made reference to pre-established ties created by kin or classmate relations and assumed that hierarchy and emotion are essential aspects of networks and not just outcomes of dyadic transactions.
John
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "Pryke, Stephen" <s.pryke@UCL.AC.UK> Date: Wed, August 14, 2013 13:46 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
* To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org *
Some interesting discussion about tie strength and we have been giving this some thought to tie strength in the context of project based organisations here at UCL. My view is that tie strength is transient and not necessarily reciprocal. I have difficulty with the notion that family is a strong tie, any more than marriage or other forms of contracts create strong ties. In fact tie strength, like beauty, is 'in the eye of the beholder'. We all have our own value systems that we apply to tie strength measurement.
My father, as part of his business activity, called at an address in London one day; a man of approximately the same age answered the door; during the brief conversation that ensued the two men established that they were brothers. They had made no contact for 30-40 years. Once their business was completed they shook hands and wished each other well. And never saw each other again! Nothing malicious here; no dispute over inheritances. Just a very weak tie!! [large family; very wide age range amongst siblings; lots of relocation caused by WW2; natural tendency not to maintain family ties etc]
So I think as academics we need to do a lot more work on tie strength; it is transient and therefore needing maintenance; related to actor characteristics and the environment in which the networks function; it is also possible to have several different tie strengths present between actors concurrently, based on a variety of network functions.
Thoughts of others welcome
Stephen UCL
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "John McCreery" <jlm@WORDWORKS.JP> Date: Wed, August 14, 2013 14:20 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Stephen, speaking as an anthropologist I respect your experience. But I also recognise how specific it is. It strikes me that increasingly the world is divided between those who, for whatever reason, live lives engaged with networks whose ties are always transient, and those of us whose for whom relationship as social fact seems more factual.
On a personal note, my father was one of seven children, my mother one of four. She was disappointed that she was only able to have two, my younger brother and me. We grew up attending annual family reunions, as well as graduations, weddings and funerals. My parents were able to buy the Virginia waterfront property on which I grew up because my maternal grandfather provided the necessary loan. They lived to celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary, and my wife and I have been married forty-four years. Oddly enough, I, my brother, my wife and her four brothers are still married to the people we married for the first time.
And when my Chinese friends talk about guanxi, I take them seriously. Why? Earlier this year, I was invited to a conference in China. To get to the university that paid for my air fair to give a talk in exchange, I had to fly from Japan to Shanghai, get across Shanghai from one airport to another, fly to a city in Western China, and then take a train to the city where that university is located. Arriving at my first airport in Shanghai, I was greeted by a young woman who took me in hand and led me through the subway maze to get to the second airport. I asked if she were a student of the professor who had invited me to the conference. No, she said, she was a younger sister of a classmate of the assistant professor who was handling the organisational details for my trip. Arriving at the airport in the city in Western China, I was picked up by another woman, who, it turned out, was another classmate of the organiser, who got me to a hotel for the night and was there in the morning to pick me up and put me on the train to the city where the university where I spoke is located. Neither of these women knew me from Adam. They had gone out of their way to pick up and take care of a perfect stranger because they felt a strong obligation/emotional tie to the person who asked the favour. The first case was particularly striking, since I was, in effect, a stranger at two removes, with no direct relationship either to the woman who met me at the airport or the sister who had asked the favour. In China, family members and classmates can ask this kind of favour, expecting that, given a chain of pre-existing relationships, those relationships will be activated to deliver the favour in question.
In both these cases, one can argue that the relationships in question are based on reciprocal expectation of support as needed — but to try to account for them in terms of transient transactions is a very long stretch, indeed. I would argue, instead, that we inhabit a world in which some people get by with transient relationships in fluid networks; others enjoy the privilege of relationships they can count on, whether or not they interact directly with all of the individuals involved. Each sees the other's world as artificial and unnatural — but both are part of the real world and must be understood as such.
John
Subject: Typology of relational embeddedness - Old/dormant strong ties & latent embeddedness From: "Julie Hite" <julie_hite@BYU.EDU> Date: Wed, August 14, 2013 14:28
Great discussion!! Building on Stephen's comments regarding tie multiplexity and tie evolution, my articles on the typology of relational embeddedness (Hite, 2003, 2005, 2008) identify different types of relational embeddedness. This typology expands our notions of strong ties and also suggests that some types of relationally embedded ties may have previously been identified as weak ties. This typology helps to move us from a dichotomous view of weak/strong ties and explores the continuum in between, enabling a broader range of identification of types of ties.
The typology suggests that ties can have high extents of personal relationship, social capital and dyadic interaction - or any one or combination of these three social components (aligned with affect, reciprocity and frequency). Ties with all three social components reflect “full embeddedness,” governed by three different types of trust. However, ties with a high degree of only one of these social components can still be relationally embedded (affecting decision making; maintaining relationship over economic decision making, using trust-based governance, resource accessibility, etc.). Many of these ties with only one type of social component may often be identified as weak ties in research based on the dichotomy of weak/strong ties.
One type of relationally embeddedness that the typology identifies is “latent embeddedness” in which ties have a high extent of personal relationship and social capital, but do not have a high extent of dyadic interaction. These ties may be overlooked in network research, particularly work- or organizational-based networks, as there may not currently be direct network content flowing (due to low interaction or frequency); they may also be labeled as weak ties in one given network context (relation) while being strong ties in another network context (relation).
Yet, given the multi-dimensionality (e.g. multiplexity) and evolutionary (transient) nature of ties, these latent ties can often be activated quickly based on their high degree of personal relationship and social capital. Thus, what may appear to be a weak (or absent) tie in one network relation may actually also have characteristics of a strong tie in another relation. Without accounting for the multiplexity of network relations, and the multiple dimensions of relational embeddedness (strong ties), the weak/strong tie research may be missing critical components of the nature, content and structure of ties.
Hite, Julie M. (2003). Patterns of multi-dimensionality among embedded network ties: A typology of relational embeddedness in emerging entrepreneurial firms. Strategic Organization, 1(1), 9-49.
Hite, Julie M. (2005). Evolutionary processes and paths of relationally-embedded network ties in emerging entrepreneurial firms. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 29, 113-144.
Hite, Julie M. (2008). The role of dyadic multi-dimensionality in the evolution of strategic network ties. In J. A. C. Baum & T. J. Rowley (Eds.), Advances in Strategic Management: Network Strategy (Vol. 25, pp. 133-170). Oxford UK: Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.
Dr. Julie M. Hite Brigham Young University Educational Leadership & Foundations 801-422-5039 (voice mail comes to my email) Julie_hite@byu.edu<mailto:Julie_hite@byu.edu>
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "John T. Maloney" <jheuristic@GMAIL.COM> Date: Wed, August 14, 2013 17:24
Hi �
still a "strong tie"? Or does it become a "weak tie"
Thanks for the discourse on ties. Further idle August musings on ties.
The temporal notion of tie strength is very important. Latent ties are just absent (potential) ties in a rationally-bounded network or �tie space.� Latent is probably a better word than absent.
Social networks are dynamic, complex systems. Ties come and go. You could probably make the case for �old absent ties� or �future latent ties� just as much as �old strong ties.� There is probably a magic ratio of strong ties to other ties for the circumstances of healthy, prosperous social networks.
It is pretty safe to say that too many strong ties leads to dysfunctional networks, group think and other network pathologies. E.g. it�s common to �refresh� corporate boards, management teams, and govt cabinets when there are too many strong (stale) ties�
BTW, sorry, but according to my wife, one of my most important strong ties, former girlfriends are positively not �old strong ties.� In fact, if I know what is good for me, they are not weak or even latent ties. They are permanently absent ties. And you better believe it! J
Strong ties evolve from propinquity. There is certainly an ebb and flow of propinquity, particularly in the fast-moving world of industrial design of consumer products like Apple� and Corporate America overall.
Jobs had propinquities w/Ive and a generation early w/Woz. They were strong ties. However, autocracy and strong ties are not mutually exclusive.
Recall the Apple corporate-era, the Sculley Model, when its so-called �strong-ties� produced bombs like Lisa and Newton.
This Apple �corporate� epoch was particularly indifferent to the unique pathology of the fervent Apple community, and its concomitant weak/absent/latent ties. It was utterly dismissive of Jobs� apparent messiah complex disorder. (Steve Jobs use and advocacy of entheogens, to discover the divine within, is legendary.)
During this time, Apple cratered, was lost in the wilderness, nearly gone, until they remediated their commitment to weak/absent/latent ties vis-à-vis the archetypical Apple zealot (customers) and once again gave their messiah absolute control.
Anyway, the prevailing theory of the firm, transaction cost economics (TCE), depends on �less-weak� ties inside the firm to lower costs. External ties are weaker/absent, thus creating greater friction and costs. It�s the overall rationale for the firm. IMO, it is ambitious to call corporate ties to lower transaction costs �strong ties.�
Meanwhile, a new view of the firm, the knowledge-based view (KBV), depends on far �less weak� (stronger) ties than TCE. Some of these may in fact be conventional strong ties, but they are rare in large organizations.
KBV firms are required to exchange sticky or tacit knowledge like designs, inventions and creativity. These complex interactions of �The Social Enterprise� must be conducted quickly, with as little cost or friction as possible.
http://colabria.com/2013/07/14/the-social-enterprise/
The KBV sees the firm simply as a unique collection of fluid, multi-valent, high-velocity �stronger� ties that conspire to create unfair competitive advantage.
-j
P.S. Useless ties: http://bit.ly/1cNBn1A
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@GMAIL.COM> Date: Wed, August 14, 2013 23:11 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Dan,
I just downloaded your dissertation and read the introduction. You have me hooked. Both as an advertising copywriter and as a veteran of several volunteer organizations mired in old divisions and quarrels, I responded instantly to your title “Ghosts of Organization Past.” The introduction has drawn me in. Yes, yes, yes….I find my head nodding yes over and over again as I read.
You point to another important aspect of real world social networks that distinguish them from the mathematical models we construct based on random graphs that mirror free market assumptions. I am tempted to call it innocence. We chatter on about homophily and brokerage, for example, without considering the social debris, old quarrels, grudges, unhealed wounds, etc., that affect how ties are may or may not be activated and, perhaps more important, how they will be activated—in warm support, chilly alliance, bitter factionalism or vendetta. Not saying the models are wrong. The math works really well. What it has to do with the messiness of real life and real politics? That is an interesting question, indeed.
John
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "Ian McCulloh" <cusum6@GMAIL.COM> Date: Thu, August 15, 2013 02:26 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
I am disappointed that Matt Brashears has not commented on the tie strength issue. I like his theories on tie strength so much I published it in my book.
Matt argues that there are several components to the strength of a tie, for example intimacy and frequency of contact. He illustrates this with the example of an old friend (high intimacy, low frequency), a spouse (high intimacy, high frequency), a co-worker (low intimacy, high frequency), and a stranger (low intimacy, low frequency). The tie strength is a diagonal line where the spouse quadrant is the strong tie and the stranger quadrant is a weak tie. Strong ties often require more effort and resources to maintain and cultivate. A person utilizes different dimensions of strength depending upon the nature of the need. For example, if you need to borrow a few dollars for lunch, you won't ask an old friend in a different town. You'd ask a co-worker. If you were faced with a personal tragedy, you may not rely on a co-worker, but would call an old friend.
Look for Matt's paper when he publishes it.
As for John Maloney's point, I think the main idea was that there are people using SNA for pretty important things (military targeting, criminal investigations, etc) that don't really know what they are talking about. Regardless of the specific point (tie strength, centrality, etc), I think he is totally right. Perhaps we are at the point as an academic field, where we should consider certifications. Should there be some kind of certification process for practitioners? We require certification for teachers, lawyers, medical doctors, even hair stylists. If people in government are going to use SNA for military targeting and criminal investigation, I think it would be a good idea to certify them to make sure they know what they are doing.
ian
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@GMAIL.COM> Date: Thu, August 15, 2013 02:35 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Ian,
I look forward to reading Matt Brashears' work. In your description of it, I still detect, however, that innocence I mentioned in earlier posts. The relations envisioned are friends, spouses, strangers. What about rivals, enemies, estranged spouses, strangers regarded as potentially or inherently hostile? I recall Georg Simmel's observation that hostility is also a social relationship and that only indifference is truly asocial. We can capture that in signed networks (+, –, 0). Bashears appears to distinguish different types of positive relationships, but what about the negative ones? There is certainly some difference between, for example, mild distaste and murderous rage.
John
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "Matthew Edward Brashears" <meb299@CORNELL.EDU> Date: Thu, August 15, 2013 02:40 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Hi All,
I appreciate Ian’s kind words, but my paper on the subject is still in development (owing mostly to some simulations that are taking awhile to complete). As he suggests, I have my doubts about tie strength and think we’d do better to use a different system that captures the latency of tie usage (i.e., average time between activations), the capacity of the tie (i.e., how much stuff you can cram down it), and its redundancy. My conception is closely tied to Aral and Van Alsytne’s (2011) work, but I don’t completely agree with them. Those of you at the Hamburg Sunbelt may have seen me discuss this in my session. In any event, the paper is still rough, but if you email me I’m willing to give advance looks at everything but the simulation results.
But definitely look for the complete publication once it’s out! ;)
-Matt
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "Loet Leydesdorff" <loet@LEYDESDORFF.NET> Date: Thu, August 15, 2013 08:15 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Dear John,
Why would there only be two dimensions? (+, -, 0). It seems to me that this design is also factor-analytical (positional). However, the factor-analysis would provide dimensions to the nodes (variables) and not to the interactions. Perhaps, one can use factor-scores for this.
The positional analysis assumes a vector-space that is constructed on the basis of the correlations (= distributions of relations). One can normalize the adjacency matrix using the cosine and then the network derived from that matrix represents the vector space. The vector space has a different topology from the network graph.
Best,
Loet
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "John McCreery" <jlm@WORDWORKS.JP> Date: Thu, August 15, 2013 14:14 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Dear Loet,
I do not, for a moment, believe that relationships have only two dimensions. Most of mine, at least, are far more complicated than that. The (+1, 0, -1) coding is nothing more than a pointer to Simmel's classic observation that relationships can be positive, negative, or non-existent, i.e., friendly, hostile, or asocial, i.e., indifferent. Still, however, I retain my impression that much of the social network analysis to which I have been exposed displays that innocence I mentioned.
Were I asked to explain why, I would hazard the speculation that network studies are fundamentally biased toward emphasizing the positive. Your work on citation networks and mine on teams that win ad contests share this bias: our data are derived from groups whose members have not only worked together, they have worked together successfully, thus their publications and awards. But what of the many whose projects have failed? I have seen numerous studies that begin with such questions as “Who are your friends?” “Would would you ask for advice?” “Who would you ask for help?” Though it may be my own ignorance, I cannot recall one in which the relevant questions were “Who are your enemies?” “Whose advice would you avoid like the plague?” or “Who would you never, ever turn to for help?” Yet these sorts of relationships are also part of social and organizational life.
But I freely admit I know very little. Nothing would please me more than a rush of citations proving me wrong.
John
Subject: Negative Ties ... From: "Edmund Chattoe-Brown" <edmundchattoebrown@FASTMAIL.FM> Date: Thu, August 15, 2013 16:30 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Dear All,
Although I am far from expert, it also struck me, reading:
Evans, K. M. (1962) Sociometry and Education, The International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul).
that the routine collection of negative tie information seems to have declined. For school children, I can see that there would be ethical issues. (What do you do if you discover everyone hates Johnson?)
It is hard to see that these negative ties would not have significant effects in real networks and thus that models not dealing with them would be in some way inadequate.
All the best,
Edmund
Edmund Chattoe-Brown (Department of Sociology, University of Leicester, UK) edmundchattoebrown@fastmail.fm
http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service
Subject: Re: Negative Ties ... From: "Joe Labianca" <joelabianca@GMAIL.COM> Date: Thu, August 15, 2013 17:08 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Amen on the need for more negative tie research. This article lays out why:
Labianca, G., & Brass, D.J. (2006). “Exploring the Social Ledger: Negative Relationships and Negative Asymmetry in Social Networks in Organizations.” *Academy of Management Review*, 31: 596-614.
Here are a few examples from organizational and political research: Venkataramani, V., Labianca, G, & Grosser, T.J. (forthcoming). “Positive and Negative Workplace Relationships, Social Satisfaction, and Organizational Attachment.” *Journal of Applied Psychology*.
Smith, J.M, Lopez-Kidwell, V., Halgin, D.S., Labianca, G., Brass, D.J. & Borgatti, S.P. (forthcoming). “Power in Politically Charged Networks.” *Social Networks*, special issue on Political Networks.
Surprisingly, there is a lot going on with negative ties in schools (e.g., bullying, disliking). A recent paper is an example of this work:
Huitsing, G., van Duijn, M.A.J., Snijders, T.A.B., Wang, P., Sainiod, M., Salmivalli, C., & Veenstra, R. (in press). Univariate and multivariate models of positive and negative networks: Liking, disliking, and bully–victim relationships. *Social Networks*. If done with the proper considerations for confidentiality, there is nothing inherently unethical about studying negative ties.
Anyone interested in learning more about what's happening in negative tie research can also join the LinkedIn group “Negative Ties and Networks”.
Best,
Joe
Giuseppe (Joe) Labianca Gatton Endowed Professor of Management Gatton College of Business & Economics LINKS Center for Social Network Analysis University of Kentucky Lexington, KY 40506 859-257-3741 (office) 404-428-4878 (mobile) http://linkscenter.org/ tinyurl.com/JoeLabianca
Subject: Re: Negative Ties ... From: "Bruggeman, J.P." <J.P.Bruggeman@UVA.NL> Date: Thu, August 15, 2013 17:33 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
…and if you forget the negative ties: Jeroen Bruggeman, V. A. Traag, and Justus Uitermark (2012) Detecting Communities through Network Data. American Sociological Review December 77: 1050-1063. http://asr.sagepub.com/content/77/6/1050.full.pdf+html Best, Jeroen.
Subject: Re: Negative Ties ... From: "Rich Persaud" <persaud@DOTPEOPLE.COM> Date: Thu, August 15, 2013 17:24 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
These may be relevant..
Rich
Ilany, Barocas, Koren, Kam, Geffen (2013) Structural balance in the social
networks of a wild mammal. Animal Behaviour.
http://www.nimbios.org/press/FS_hyrax
Srinivasan (2011), Local balancing influences global structure in social networks
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/5/1751.full
The friend of my enemy is my enemy: Virtual universe study of structural balance
Szell, Lambiotte, Thurner (2010). Multirelational organization of large-scale
social networks in an online world. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100719162510.htm
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/31/13636.full.pdf
Leskovec, Huttenlocher, Kleinberg (2010), Predicting Positive and Negative Links
in Online Social Media
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/www10-signed.pdf
http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/jkleinberg-slides.pdf
Overview: Social Balance on Networks: The Dynamics of Friendship and Hatred
http://www.r it.edu/~w-cmmc/research/Tibor_Antal.pdf
Brandes, Lerner (2008), Visualization of Conflict Networks
http://www.inf.uni-konstanz.de/algo/publications/bl-vcn-08.pdf
Subject: Malignant Ties From: "John T. Maloney" <jheuristic@GMAIL.COM> Date: Thu, August 15, 2013 17:57 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Hi ?
Re: “Ghosts of Organization Past”
Link vestiges and network provenance are essential properties and critical enablers of Hastily Formed Networks ?
http://colabria.com/2013/08/15/hastily-formed-networks/
Perpetual drills and well-conceived simulations nurture latent links that are key to creating positive outcomes vis-à-vis Hastily Formed Networks.
Concerning malignant ties, please consider some observations.
Chronic (old) strong-tie dysfunction is broadly manifest in central government agencies and unions. Remember, the bureaucratic mission is to preserve the bureaucracy, by definition. These rancid, unelected organizations have impenetrable strong-tie patterns. They are a cancer on civil society.
Criticizing strong-tie central govt bureaucracy for not being responsive or competent is ridiculous. Service not their objective. It makes for good political theater though. It?s why 9 out of 10 Federal employees summarily reject the ACA (ObamaCare). No surprise that Federal employees pursue enlightened self-interest in the ?real-world? for themselves. They vehemently reject their own dog food!
When criticized, the conditioned motor-response of these intransigent strong-tie networks is ?more money.? Recall, strong-ties take enormous effort and resources to maintain. More money for entrenched bureaucrats and strong-tie networks makes them even more insular.
Take the loathsome teachers unions for example. They have led an unprecedented 40-year decay of K-12 education. Even with the highest level of per-student funding in the world, these feculent strong-tie networks cannot produce competitive students.
Strong-tie network patterns can produce great things like breakthrough science, prosperous families and flourishing communities. They also produce the disease Eisenhower warned of in 1961, the military-industrial complex (MIC). It is now a monolithic and sinister Iron Triangle ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_triangle_(US_politics)
Note the treacherous ?Love Triangle? of strong-ties too ?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/The_Leveson_Love_Triangle_Leve son-2.jpg
-j
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "Ian McCulloh" <cusum6@GMAIL.COM> Date: Thu, August 15, 2013 21:51 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
I think there is a subtle difference between tie strength and the idea of positive, negative, null ties. I don't think Matt claims there are only two aspects of tie strength, but rather more than one. While this may seem obvious, it has not been formalized. I think this is central to whether a strong tie is useful or not, because someone must ask what is meant by strong and what is the purpose of the tie under what context.
Ian McCulloh
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "Loet Leydesdorff" <loet@LEYDESDORFF.NET> Date: Fri, August 16, 2013 08:13 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Dear John,
It seems to me that there are two themes:
1. the bias in the data collection: one cannot ask so easily for latent relations; but psychologists may have developed smart strategies for this such as scales;
2. the data-analysis in SNA is focused on relations (graph-analysis) whereas relations may mean different things in terms of latent dimensions in the vector space.
Both issues point to the limits of using SNA other than as a methodology.
Best,
Loet
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "Ian McCulloh" <cusum6@GMAIL.COM> Date: Fri, August 16, 2013 13:02 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
I'm not sure the definition of SNA is that tight. There is a methodology, using mainly visualizations, math, and some other stuff. There is also theory, such as social circles, social forces (homophily, proximity, etc), and tons of stuff. I would argue that is SNA too.
It is the development of social theory that should precede the development of mathematical techniques to test them.
Also, do not forget that many of the techniques developed in this manner find application in other non-social domains.
Ian McCulloh
Subject: Re: Negative Ties ... From: "John P. Boyd" <jpboyd@UCI.EDU> Date: Fri, August 16, 2013 20:26 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
I can’t help but point out that the only cases that really fit the theory of structural balance were known in anthropology as “moiety systems”: the tribe was divided into two halves, with the rule that people had to marry into the other half and that children belonged to the same half as their father in “patrilineal” moiety systems (or as their mother in the “matrilineal” kind). This implies that marriage is a negative relation. (No jokes allowed here.)
This brings up the question of how do you know if a relation R is positive or negative? One way is to look at its psychological properties, but another way is by its algebraic properties: positive ties are idempotent R^2=R, while negative ties are involutions: R^2≠R, but R^3=R.
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "Michel Grossetti" <rgros@UNIV-TLSE2.FR> Date: Fri, August 16, 2013 21:25 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Hello,
For those who can read French, Claire Bidart, Alain Degenne and me gathered in a book the results of several surveys of personal networks, including a longitudinal study. One chapter focuses on ties creation, another of their changing over time, another on their disappearance, etc. We also conclude that dormant ties are certainly an important issue, not enough studied.
The book : Claire Bidart, Alain Degenne, Michel Grossetti, 2011, La vie en réseau. Dynamique des relations sociales, Presses Universitaires de France, Collection « Le lien social ».
Michel Grossetti
Subject: Re: What is an old/dormant strong tie? From: "John McCreery" <jlm@WORDWORKS.JP> Date: Sat, August 17, 2013 01:25 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Ian,
I agree. SNA is a mixture of theory and methodology. To me the methodology provides the social microscope I mentioned (Vladimir Bategelj says I ought to say “telescope”). I t is the theory where I see the innocence I talk about. I recall seeing references to the old maxim: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” but I don't see much done with this idea.
I wonder what might be done with, for example, segmentary opposition, a classic notion from British social anthropology and also said to be a common feature of societies throughout North Africa and the Middle East. The idea is a simple one. Every individual belongs to a nested series of groups. Let's call them for sake of illustration family<lineage<clan<tribe. Thus, let's use me as ego, my brother is my enemy in quarrels within the family but my ally in quarrels between our families and others in the same lineage. My cousin is an enemy in quarrels between our families but an ally in battles between our lineage and another. My parallel cousin at one remove is an enemy in quarrels between our lineages but an ally when our clan fights with another. The rule is that we put aside the lower level quarrel to fight the larger battle: like combined operations when Army and Navy have to work together. It doesn't take a lot of thought to realize what a hash this makes of simple-minded notions about the effects of homophily. Sometimes it defines the alliance, sometimes it defines the battleground.
Might be fun to play with. And, of course, a fairly serious topic for someone in the national security business.
John
Subject: Re: Negative Ties ... From: "Taha Yasseri" <taha.yaseri@gmail.com> Date: Mon, August 19, 2013 15:01 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU
In this work (Section 4.2.) we study anti-collaboration network of Wikipedia editors (based on “reverts” in contrast to “co-authorship”): Value Production in a Collaborative Environment, Taha Yasseri, János Kertész Journal of Statistical Physics, 2013, 151(3-4), pp 414-439.
I thought it might be helpful.
bests, Taha
Subject: Re: "Resources" in SNA From: "David Shoham" <dshoham@LUMC.EDU> Date: Thu, September 12, 2013 17:23 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU Abigail, It's a more general definition, but Coleman offers the following which is very useful for the SNA conceptualization of resources: "The resources each actor has which are of interest to others include a wide variety of things. The most obvious of these are what economists call private goods... But private divisible goods are only one of several kinds of things over which actors have control and in which they are interested... [T]here are several properties that distinguish types of resources... These properties are divisibility, alienability, conservation, time of delivery, and absence of externalities." (Foundations of Social Theory, pp.33-34) One of Coleman's examples is information, which does not exhibit conservation. Eg, if I pass along a piece of information, the information remains with me. This is not true for private economic goods: if I pass along a piece of fruit, I no longer possess it. David **************************** David Shoham, PhD MSPH Dept. Public Health Sciences Phone: 708-327-9006 Email: dshoham@lumc.edu **************************** >>> Abigail McHugh-Grifa <abigailmchugh@HOTMAIL.COM> 9/12/2013 9:37 AM >>> ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** Dear SOCNET community, I am a Ph.D. candidate in Music Education at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. I am working on my dissertation, which uses a qualitative approach to SNA. However, there is one piece of information that I am having a surprisingly difficult time finding, and I was wondering if you might be able to help me: How is the term resource typically defined in SNA research? Is there some article or book that you are aware of that explicitly defines what resources are from a SNA perspective? Any guidance you might provide would be greatly appreciated.Thank you for your time, Abigail McHugh-GrifaEmail: abigailmchugh@hotmail.com Blog: happilyeducated.com
Subject: Re: "Resources" in SNA From: "Malick Faye" <malick.faye@UNI-OLDENBURG.DE> Date: Fri, September 13, 2013 09:41 To: SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDU Priority: Normal Options: View Full Header | View Printable Version | Download this as a file | Whitelist Sender ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** Abigail, I don't know if you understand French, but you will find seven categories of ressources in Lemieux (1999:17-18): ressources matérielles, ressources normatives, ressources statutaires, ressources actionneuses, ressources humaines, ressources informationnelles et ressources relationnelles. He notes, further, as David wrote, three types of ressources with regard to their transmission: deperditive, semi-deperditive, and non déperditive. Hope it helps Malick
5. nov 2013
Can it be combined with
ftp://ftp.etsii.ull.es/pub/PRGCOM/trabajos/caminos_min/fast_shortest_path.pdf
?
Subject Re: Network and Geographic maps From Tracy Van HoltAdd contact Sender Social Networks Discussion ForumAdd contact To SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDUAdd contact Date Wed 14:47
Hi Michelle,
ArcGIS is widely used in spatial analyses, but you probably can’t just overlay these datasets and you may need transform these data. Also, ORA has a geospatial component and may get you what you want—it may be more user friendly. Do you have the city map layers? You will need to make sure that all of your data points are in the same datum and projection and these data are entered in a way that the software can recognize in ArcGIS.
Viewing your data points on a map is the first step, but all gets very exciting when you can actually run spatial analyses and integrate landscape-level information with your network data. For that, you need ArcGIS or some other spatial analysis software. You can contact me if you want to discuss more.
—Tracy Van Holt
East Carolina University-Geography Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences-Visiting Scientist
On Mar 19, 2014, at 2:27 PM, Michelle Anne Birkett birkett@NORTHWESTERN.EDU wrote:
* To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org *
Hi Folks,
Is anyone familiar with combining network plots with some sort of GIS or geographic mapping software? I’m working with neighborhood by neighborhood connections in Gephi and would love to visualize this on an actual City map. Any resources you can point me to would be appreciated. Software outside of Gephi is fine too.
Thanks!
Michelle
Michelle Birkett, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Department of Medical Social Sciences
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
625 N. Michigan Avenue, 27th Floor
Phone: 312.503.3538; Fax: 312.503.4800
Email: birkett@northwestern.edu
www.feinberg.northwestern.edu
Subject Re: Network and Geographic maps From Loet LeydesdorffAdd contact Sender Social Networks Discussion ForumAdd contact To SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDUAdd contact Date Wed 14:49
Dear Michelle,
You may find the interface between Pajek and Google maps at http://www.leydesdorff.net/gmaps/index.htm useful.
Within a Pajek file one can also use the geographical coordinates for positioning the nodes. It is a bit of puzzling. One can read the Pajek files thereafter into other visualization tools (e.g., VOSviewer) and keep the coordinates.
Best,
Loet
Loet Leydesdorff
Professor Emeritus, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Subject Re: Network and Geographic maps From Alla G. KhadkaAdd contact Sender Social Networks Discussion ForumAdd contact To SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDUAdd contact Reply-To Alla G. KhadkaAdd contact Date Wed 15:09
Hi Michelle,
I use ORA (already mentioned by Tracy). All you need is longitude latitude info, and ORA puts your locations on the map and connects them (if your data is relational). It also allows coloring your nodes by attribute values. The advantage of ORA is that first you can do social network analysis of your network and then visualize it on a map. Feel free to e-mail me if you need more info.
Alla
Subject Re: Network and Geographic maps From Kathleen CarleyAdd contact Sender Social Networks Discussion ForumAdd contact To SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDUAdd contact Date Wed 15:10
ORA also will export to ARCGis and will link to googlemaps
Subject AW: [SOCNET] Network and Geographic maps From Dr. Murat ÜnalAdd contact Sender Social Networks Discussion ForumAdd contact To SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDUAdd contact Date Wed 15:11
Dear Michelle
Thanks for your e-mail. You can generally use ORA- Net Scenes developed by people from Carnegie Mellon where you have the ability to create geospatial networks (using latitudes and longitudes). It is also linked to Nasa World Wind technology and could potentially be the solution you look for as ORA is quite a comprehensive solution.
All the best Murat
Subject Re: Network and Geographic maps From Craig AllenAdd contact Sender Social Networks Discussion ForumAdd contact To SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDUAdd contact Date Wed 15:15
Michelle,
I use R which has some really easy-to-use mapping tools. In particular the packages “maps” and “maptools” should be a good start. If you want to incorporate street-level background maps, then I suggest the packages “OpenStreetMap” together with “ggmap” - once you learn these tools you can pull in address lists.
In fact at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3257441/geocoding-in-r-with-google-maps there is a nice little discussion of how to extract the latitude and longitude from any address in the world using the API at maps.google.com. You can only make 2,500 requests per day, but with a bit of planning, you can work through an entire data set fairly quickly.
- Craig Allen
Subject Re: Network and Geographic maps From Jan RieblingAdd contact Sender Social Networks Discussion ForumAdd contact To SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDUAdd contact Date Wed 15:16
Dear Michelle,
we had much success in combining the Networkx and Basemap packages in Python. This may not be the easiest solution but it allow you to tackle the problem within one framework. You can look at our code here: http://www.sociology-hacks.org/?p=67
Kind regards, Jan Riebling
Subject Re: Network and Geographic maps From Sean EvertonAdd contact Sender Social Networks Discussion ForumAdd contact To SOCNET@LISTS.UFL.EDUAdd contact Date Wed 15:29
Michelle:
ORA works quite well in this regard. It can export to Google Maps and ArcGIS. I discuss how to do so in Chapter 10 of my book (pp. 333-341).
Sean
Sean F. Everton, PhD sfeverton18@gmail.com http://godpoliticsbaseball.blogspot.com/
Disrupting Dark Networks (book) https://sites.google.com/site/sfeverton18/research (book companion site)