An Introduction to the Social Side of Social Network Analysis Barry Wellman Director, NetLab Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto Toronto, Canada M5S 1A1
[email protected] www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman NetLab Barry Wellman www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Possible C.S. Fallacies Only online counts Groupware NE Networkware HCI: Only two-person interactions matter Can build small world systems All ties are the same; all relationships are the same Social network software support social networks Size matters – Linked In No need to analyze networks 3 Barry Wellman www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman In a Sentence ––– “To Discover How A, Who is in Touch with B and C, Is Affected by the Relation Between B & C” John Barnes (anthropologist) “The Sociology is Hard. The Computer Science is Easy.” Bill Buxton (UofT, PARC, MSR) 4 Barry Wellman www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman What is a Social Network? Social structure as the patterned organization of network members & their relationships Old Def: When a computer network connects people or organizations, it is a social network Now ported over to more ambiguous cases: web networks; citation networks, etc. 5 Three Ways to Look at Reality Categories All Possess One or More Properties as an Aggregate of Individuals Examples: Men, Developed Countries Groups (Almost) All Densely-Knit Within Tight Boundary Thought of as a Solidary Unit (Really a Special Network) Family, Workgroup, Community Networks Set of Connected Units: People, Organizations, Networks Can Belong