Potential Of Social Network Analysis Research Articles

Desarrollo, territorio y capital social. Un análisis a partir de dinámicas relacionales en el desarrollo rural

While it seems widely accepted the idea that social networks are a major source of social capital, it draws the attention the scarcity of studies using Social Network Analysis (ARS) for further analysis and measurement of social capital. This is especially significant when you consider the huge number of publications existing on this concept. The purpose of this paper is to carry out an approximation to the potential of social network analysis (ARS) to analyze the presence and forms of capital, specifically in

Using social network analysis in community development practice and research: a case study

In 2010, we proposed that integrating social network analysis into community development practice may be a useful way to make overt the links between micro- and macro-level issues in communities, and for researching the impacts of community development work (Ennis, G. and West, D. (2010) Exploring the potential of social network analysis in asset-based community development practice and research, Australian Social Work, 63 (4), 404-417). This article presents research drawn from a community case study and provides a real example of how network analysis can be embedded in community development processes. The research demonstrates that social network analytic techniques can be useful in a range of ways, including: facilitating a critical analysis of 'the community'; focusing community work processes; and providing particular understandings about the outcomes and impacts of community work. In summary, the findings demonstrate that social network analysis is a useful tool for facilitating community development and measuring the efficacy of community development projects.

Trust and Treason: Social Network Structure as a Source of Flexibility in Peace Negotiations

AbstractTo reach a negotiated peace settlement, the parties to the conflict have to show flexibility in their negotiation positions. This article examines why some rebel groups are flexible on the main issue of contention, whereas others are not. The study explores rebels’ social network structure as a source of negotiation flexibility. The proposition that a rebel group structured as a “trust network” can manage the risks of peace making through a “trust mechanism” of information sharing, verification, and mutual influence between rebel negotiators and non‐negotiating rebel leaders, is consistent with a procedural justice logic. The proposition is analyzed for negotiations between LTTE and the Sri Lankan government, and Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) and the Indonesian government. The findings support the proposition, and highlight the potential of social network analysis to further the understanding of conflict resolution. Policy wise, the evolution of network structure implies that the likelihood of negotiation success varies over time.

Exploring Internal Child Sex Trafficking Networks Using Social Network Analysis

This article explores the potential of social network analysis as a tool in supporting the investigation of internal child sex trafficking in the UK. In doing so, it uses only data, software, and training already available to UK police. Data from two major operations are analysed using in-built centrality metrics, designed to measure a network’s overarching structural properties and identify particularly powerful individuals. This work addresses victim networks alongside offender networks. The insights generated by SNA inform ideas for targeted interventions based on the principles of Situational Crime Prevention. These harm-reduction initiatives go beyond traditional enforcement to cover prevention, disruption, prosecution, etc. This article ends by discussing how SNA can be applied and further developed by frontline policing, strategic policing, prosecution, and policy and research.

Social network analysis aided product development project management: IC Substrates case study

Article history: Received October 15 2010 Received in revised form 15 December 2010 Accepted 16 December 2010 Available online 16 December 2010 This paper proposes the social network analysis (SNA), to study interaction among various activities in a product development process (PDP). The implementation of SNA helps to measure the properties of information flow and identifies PDP activities and limitations. The findings of an exploratory research project which explores the potential of SNA, as an improve tool for visually mapping and analyzing the stakeholders relationships found across the IC substrates design/manufacturing’s PDP of the Unimicron Technology Corp. From the findings, the authors prescribe the necessary SNA recommendations to improve the social conditions within the PDP.

Exploring the Potential of Social Network Analysis in Asset-based Community Development Practice and Research

Strengths-based practice appears to be a popular approach to social work practice. Increasingly, it has become the approach of choice in community work, with the “asset-based community development” model being utilised both in Australia and internationally. However, asset-based community development has been criticised for its lack of an evidence base, lack of theoretical depth, and its lack of consideration of the macro level causes of disempowerment. While concepts of networks are central to asset-based community development, social network theory and analysis have rarely been utilised in a comprehensive manner in asset-based community development practice or research. This article contends that asset-based community development practice can benefit from the integration of key concepts from social network theory. Similarly, it is proposed that social network analysis holds promise as an appropriate methodology in terms of understanding the efficacy of asset-based community development projects.

La Social Network Analysis (SNA) applicata alle comunità virtuali per l’apprendimento: analisi strutturale delle interazioni all’interno dei Web forum

In the Activity Theory approach, the online learning may be carried out through a variety of Web artefacts that mediate the relationship between the students, the object of the activity and the virtual community. One of the most widely-used Web artefacts utilised for creating virtual communities is the Web forum. The analysis of interaction and collaboration within these communities can be done by qualitative and quantitative analysis (for example, content analysis or numbers of «posted» messages), but also by considering relational data. In this paper, we present the potential of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to analyse the Web forum interactions realised within two virtual communities of students. This type of analysis offers many indications with graphical representations (sociograms) to describe and analyse the structure and the components of bonds and collaboration within a virtual community and to describe and analyse the influence of individual role and position on the interactions realised. The SNA seems to be an advantageous method both for research purposes and as a support for the tutor/moderator during the e-Learning process (monitoring critical events such as isolation, catalysing discussion and non-reciprocity interactions). In addition, we also present some practical and conceptual critical issues that the researcher and the tutor must consider in applying the SNA to virtual communities of learners.

The Exclusiveness of the Political Field: Networks and political mobilization

This paper applies social network analysis to three case study social movement organizations based in the north of England: a local Labour Party branch, an environmental group, and a conservation group. Using a postal survey of members, we chart the extent of ties between members of these three groups, indicating how each group has its own internal social dynamics and characteristics that are related to the nature of the movement organizations themselves. We explore how the network structures interrelate with the socio-demographic structure of the membership of the three organizations, and we show there are important differences in the way that core members of the three organizations are recruited compared to those who are either peripheral or isolated. Our paper is the first to analyse the networks of whole populations of case study organizations in the UK, and can therefore be read as developing the potential of social network analysis for case study research and for understanding social movements. Analytically we argue it is important to distinguish two different types of ways that networks are important. They can be seen as offering resources for mobilization, or they can be seen as providing a means of integrating particular types of individuals into organizations. It is this latter sense that offers a more fundamental role for network analysis, and we argue that it offers an important way of developing insights from resource mobilization theory by relating them to Bourdieu's provocative arguments regarding the exclusiveness of the political field.

Embeddedness of Ethnographic Cases: A Social Networks Perspective

As the world becomes more complex, the work of anthropology, both theoretical and practical, becomes more demanding. People at the local level are increasingly being drawn into larger circuits through economic linkages, demographic processes, social interactions, and flows of information that transcend local and national boundaries. Such global linkages and the new embeddedness they produce require more sophisticated approaches to ethnography. This paper proposes social network analysis as a valuable approach to that end. The concept of embeddedness, which is central to the social networks perspective, is introduced. Hierarchical embeddedness of the local level in the larger society, economy, and polity is distinguished from domain embeddedness, the interpenetration of different fields of activity. Network studies of two ethnographic cases, gift giving among !Kung and ritual celebrations in a Javanese village, illustrate the potential of social network analysis for investigating embeddedness. The paper co...

The strength of weak conversational ties in the flow of information and influence

The “Strength of Weak Ties” theory is used to analyze the flow of information and influence in the network of conversational ties in a kibbutz community. The flow of six information items and two decision-making items was measured by indicators of communicative efficiency — speed, accuracy and credibility. The strength of ties activated and the direction of the flow (within groups or between groups) was analyzed. The findings reveal the actual, everyday functioning of weak ties as inter-group bridges, confirming the “Strength of Weak Ties” claim. The communicative advantages of weak ties are examined, applying structural analysis methods. The tendency of weak ties towards intransitivity and low multiplexity, is suggested to account for their frequent activation as inter-group bridges. The findings highlight the potential of social network analysis as a bridge between micro-level interaction and macro-level patterns including diffusion of innovation, formation of public opinion and social solidarity. Weak ties serve as the crucial paths between groups, thus providing the means by which individual behavior and ideas, originating in small face-to-face groups, are routinized and agglomerated into large-scale patterns.