Abstract
The current paper describes exploratory research into the hyperlink network of Hungarian organizations in Romania. The research examines where the boundaries of the organizational system lie, and the way actors are connected to other Hungarian, Romanian and international organizations. The aim was to combine classic sociological knowledge about the Hungarian minority and its organizations with the theory of social network analysis and hyperlink analysis. The research finds that the hyperlink network of Hungarian websites in Romania is highly interconnected. Results also show that the members of the network exhibit comparably strong ties to Hungarian-language and Romanian-language websites, but the greatest proportion of external connections are with international sites. We found that the structural positions of actors within the examined network was not correlated to the distribution of external connections; actors in the network developed connections to Hungarian-language, Romanian-language and international websites regardless of their network positions.
Highlights
The Hungarian minority from Romania may be considered a ‘society’ which has its own reality (Bárdi, 1999; Kántor, 2004; Kiss, 2006)
The current paper discusses the results of exploratory research that examined where the boundaries of the organizational system are, and how the actors within it are connected to other Hungarian, Romanian, and international organizations
The hyperlink analysis of websites may seem to be farfetched in terms of the social network analysis of Hungarian organizations from Romania, we argue that a hyperlink analysis is valid
Summary
The Hungarian minority from Romania may be considered a ‘society’ which has its own reality (Bárdi, 1999; Kántor, 2004; Kiss, 2006). Hungarian organizations that act to sustain ethnicity and which satisfy communal demands that majority organizations are unable to fulfill are of elevated importance (Kiss, 2006) They are connected to both Romanian organizations and organizations from Hungary–for example, they receive various resources (including information and knowledge, in addition to funding) in different ways: from internal sources and from the majority society through other organizations (Brubaker et al, 2006; Kiss, 2006). The findings of such research imply that there are influential actors in networks that support the flow of information and can help contextualize our results, showing how connected Hungarian websites in Romania really are in reality
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