Week 7: The Wonderful World of Networks
March 4th, 2009 Devin
This week: The wonderful world of Networks. They are everywhere and alwayshave been. As if you needed any more reason to study them, networks can shape information flows, technological adoption, and employment prospects. Further, this is an especially amazing time to be looking at social networks as the last few years have featured the rise of sites devoted to individuals codifying their own networks. A greater wealth of data is available than ever before and we didn’t even have to pay anyone to do it.
In the first half of the week we have two chapters explaining the fundamentals of network theory and analysis, as well as the best known application of social network analysis, Granovetter’s “The Strength of Weak Ties”. In class we discussed various ways of measuring networks and a node’s place in them. These measures included centrality, density, and others.
The second half of the week will focus on the role of homophily. Homophily is a measure of similarity, something important in looking at the construction and interrelatedness in networks and the flow of information said networks. As you read through this material, we suggest that you keep in mind one of the salient points from “the strength of weak ties”: individuals who are less similar to you are likely to have different network connections. Indeed, they are also likely to have information that you do not…yet.
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