Using Social Network Analysis to Study Computer Networks
Barry Wellman
Department of Sociology
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON Canada, M5S 1A1
wellman@chass.utoronto.ca
Aim
Our aim is to demonstrate the usefulness of a social network approach
for understanding how people interact using computer-mediated communication.
When a computer network connects people or organizations, it is a social
network. Yet the study of computer-supported social networks has not received
as much attention as have studies of individuals engaged in human-computer
interaction or two-person communication within small groups. Social network
analysis traces the larger patterns of connectivity among individuals and
groups, and links these patterns to variations in social and technical
outcomes. By using social network analysis to consider the overall structure
of social interaction, designers, end users and researchers will be better
able to deal with loosely-bounded systems.
Objectives
Our objectives are to teach ACM members the principles, methods and
substantive findings of social network analysis. We first provide an overview
of some basic concepts of social network analysis and present SIGGROUP-relevant
findings, and demonstrate where social network data can be, and have been,
used to study computer-mediated communication. We then show how to design
social network research, collect social network data, and use standard
and specialized software packages toanalyze these data. Throughout, we
show the utility of the social network approach for studying computer mediated
communication, be it in computer-supported cooperative work, in virtual
community, or in interactions over less bounded systems such as the Internet.
Sites to look at before the Tutorial
Garton, Haythornthwaite & Wellman, "Studying Online Social Networks"
UCINet social network analysis software
Krackplot graphing package that links with UCINet
Home page of the International Network for Social Network Analysis
Intended
Audience
The primary audience of this tutorial will be researchers in the academic,
private and government sectors. It will also be of interest to developers
of both software and hardware who wish to learn from research experience
how to design more effective groupware.
About
the Instructors
Barry Wellman is Professor of Sociology at the University of
Toronto. He founded the International Network for Social Network Analysis
and headed it for its first dozen years. He has written more than 100 articles
and edited two books on the subject, with work in the theory, methods and
substance of social network analysis. In his thirty years of research,
he has moved from his study of community as far-flung social networks to
the study of computer-supported cooperative work and wired suburbs. He
was the principal social science consultant in the development and evaluation
of the Cavecat and Telepresence desktop videoconferencing systems.