COMM 555 –
Social Networks
Spring, 2008
Thu 10:00-12:00
Prof. Keith Hampton
DESCRIPTION
Social
networks is the description of a diverse body of research and theory based upon
the premise that relationships, in
contrast to individual attributes,
are useful for understanding social structure and social behavior. Network
analysts study the structure of these relations, how the patterns of social
interactions allocate resources, constrain behavior, and channel information
and social change. Their methods are both quantitative and qualitative.
This
course is a non-mathematical introduction to social network analysis. It is an
introduction to the fundamental concepts related to the theory and measurement of
social structure, including: network size, diversity, centrality, multiplexity,
frequency of contact, tie duration, and tie strength. We will consider how
using a network perspective can help to conceptualize and clarify many
different types of important sociological questions and offer new ways of
answering those questions. The course will show how attending to the
organization of social relationships can increase our understanding of various
aspects of individual, community, and organizational life, such as health,
social support, job attainment, and the spread of information. Particular
attention is given to the role of communications media and the role of new
technologies in the maintenance and formation of social networks. The topic of
“social capital” – resources people may access through their social contacts –
will also be a central focus of the course. What are the costs and benefits of
different kinds of network structure for people and for groups? We will constantly
ask how and why various forms of personal social capital are unequally
distributed, and how this contributes to social mobility and the reproduction
of inequality.
PROCEDURES AND EVALUATION
Seminar
sessions will involve intensive discussions of assigned readings. Final grades
will be based on an evaluation of 10 blog postings on the subject of the weekly
course readings (20%), 20 comments on other students’ blog postings (10%), a
presentation outlining the final project (10%), a final project (50%), and
class participation (10%). Students are urged to pay close attention to due
dates, late assignments will not be accepted.
A
major component of the course will involve the development and use of a
personal blog. Students will receive access to the necessary blogging software
and will be provided with basic instruction on how to maintain a blog. Students
are not expected to have prior experience with blogs.
Course
readings and participation: Students
are expected to have read the week’s readings in advance of the course meeting.
Class meetings will be in a seminar format and students should be prepared to participate
in a discussion based on the topic and readings of the week.
Blog
Postings: Students are responsible
for submitting short commentaries on 10 of the weeks’ readings (500-700 words).
Commentaries should focus on a minimum of 3-4 of the readings from each
week and should consist of limited summary; focusing on an evaluation of the
readings and identifying 2-3 questions for discussion during the
class meeting (focus on the papers’ key issues, strengths and limitations, and
a comparison to previous weeks’ readings). Each commentary should be
submitted as a post to the student’s blog by 8:00am on the Tuesday before the
class meeting. To be clear, students should post commentaries to their blog
on the Tuesday before the topic is discussed in class.
Blog Comments: Each student is responsible for contributing comments
to fellow students’ blogs. Comments should be a minimum of 200 words and offer
a critique of that week’s posting, seek clarification, compare or contrast
postings, or provide additional evidence or new information (such as a link to
a related article, website, etc.). Each student must contribute a minimum of 20
comments, credit will be given for a maximum of two comments each week,
students cannot comment on the same blog more than three times over the
duration of the course. Comments must be posted by 8:00am on the day of
class for posts related to that week’s readings.
Participation: To encourage active participation all seminar
members will take turns introducing the day's readings and facilitating the
discussion at different times during the semester. At the beginning of each
week’s session discussion leaders will briefly evaluate the readings and
suggest possible questions for discussion.
Presentation (March 20): The in-class presentation is as an opportunity for
students to explore individual interests and to make a preliminary presentation
of their final project. Student's presentations should be 10 minutes long, use
PowerPoint, and follow the format of a formal conference presentation.
The presentation should
include at least the following elements:
Final project (due May 29): The final project can take on one of a number of
different forms to be negotiated individually with the instructor. Projects
should deal with course themes focusing on a topic of interest to the student.
Possibilities include a full research proposal (25-30 double spaced pages), or a
paper of near publishable quality based on the analysis of existing data or
data collected as part of an original research project (25-30 double spaced
pages).
COURSE MATERIALS
Handouts, information on
assignments, and other announcements will be available from the course blog:
http://www.mysocialnetwork.net/blog08/555/
UCINET: Social Network
Analysis Software.
Contact Lizz Cooper to have
installed on your ASC office PC.
It
is recommended that students subscribe to Socnet,
the e-mail list of the International Network for Social Network Analysis
(INSNA). On occasion current topics from this list will be discussed in class.
To subscribe to Socnet
send email to listserv@lists.ufl.edu with the
following information in the body of
the message (leave the Subject line blank):
subscribe
SOCNET <yourfirstname> <yourlastname>
COURSE OUTLINE
Week 1 (January 17) - Introduction and Organization
Week 2 (January 24) – What is Social Network Analysis?
(NOTE: NO CLASS!)
Wellman, Barry. (1999). The
Network Community: an Introduction. Pp. 1-48 in Networks in the Global Village, edited by Barry Wellman.
Wasserman, Stanley &
Katherine Faust. (1994). Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications.
Freeman, L. C. (2000).
See you in the funny papers: Cartoons and social networks. Connections, 23(1),
32-42.
Munge, Peter and Noshir Contractor. 2003. Theories of Communication Networks.
Week 3 (January 31) – Small World and Scale Free
Networks
Milgram, Stanley. (1967). The
Small-World Problem. Psychology Today 1:62-67
Gladwell, M. (1999). Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg. The New Yorker 74(41): 52-64.
Korte, C., &
Milgram, S. (1970). Acquaintance Networks Between Racial Groups. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 15(2), 101-108.
Kilworth, Peter, Christopher McCarthy, Russell Bernard
and Mark House. (2006). The Accuracy of Small World Chains in Social Networks. Social Networks 28(1): 85-96.
Watts,
Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo and
Eric Bonabeau. (2003). Scale-Free Networks. Scientific
American 288(5).
Bonacich, Phillip. (2004).
The Invasion of the Physicists. Social
Networks 26(3): 285-288.
Week 4 (February 7) – Tie Strength / Social Capital.
Granovetter, Mark. (1973).
The Strength of Weak Ties. American
Journal of Sociology 78(6): 1360-1380.
Burt, Ronald. (1993). The Social Structure of
Competition. Pp. 65-103 in Explorations
in Economic Sociology, edited by Richard Swedberg.
McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Brashears, M. E.
(2006). Social Isolation in
Lin,
Burt, Ronald. 2001. Structural Holes versus Network
Closure as Social Capital. Pp. 31-56 in Social Capital: Theory and Research,
edited by Nan Lin, Karen Cook, and Ronald Burt.
Erickson, Bonnie. (2001). Good Networks and Good Jobs:
The Value of Social Capital to Employers and Employees. Pp. 127-158 in Social
Capital: Theory and Research, edited by Nan Lin, Karen Cook, and Ronald Burt.
Fernandez, Roberto, Emilio
Castilla and Paul Moore. (2000). Social
Capital at Work: Networks and Employment at a
Week 5
(February 14) – Community and Context
Bott,
Kalmijn, M. (2003).
Shared friendship networks and the life course. Social Networks, 25,
231-249.
Fischer, Claude. (1982). To Dwell Among Friends.
Wellman, Barry, and Scot Wortley. (1990). Different
Strokes From Different Folks: Community Ties and Social Support. American Journal of Sociology 96(3):558-88.
Wellman, Barry, and Kenneth
Frank. (2001). Network Capital in a Multi-Level World: Getting Support from
Personal Communities. Pp. 233-274 in Social Capital: Theory and Research,
edited by Nan Lin, Karen Cook, and Ronald Burt.
Espinoza, Vicente. (1999). Social Networks Among the
Urban Poor: Inequalities and Integration in a
Sampson, Robert. (2006). Collective Efficacy Theory:
Lessons Learned and Directions for Future Inquiry. Pp 149-168 in Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological
Theory, edited by Francis T. Cullen, John Paul Wright, and Kristie R.
Blevins.
Entwisle, Barbara, Katherine Faust, Ronald R.
Rindfuss, and Toshiko Kaneda (2007). Network and Contexts: Variation in the
Structure of Social Ties. American
Journal of Sociology 112(5): 1495-1533.
Week 6 (February 21) – Network Size and Homophily.
Rogers, Everett, & Bhowmik Dilip (1970).
Homophily-Heterophily: Relational Concepts for Communication Research. Public Opinion Quarterly 34(4): 523-38.
McPherson, Miller,
Erickson, Bonnie. (1997). The Relational Basis of
Attitudes. Pp. 99-122 in Social
Structures: A Network Approach edited by Barry Wellman and S. D. Berkowitz.
Suitor, Jill, Karl Pillemer,
and Shirley Keeton. (1995). When Experience Counts: The Effects of Experiential
and Structural Similarity on Patterns of Support and Interpersonal Stress. Social Forces 73(4): 1573-1588.
Moody, James (2001). Race, School Integration, and
Friendship Segregation in
Pearson, M., Steglich,
C., & Snijders, T. (2006). Homophily and assimilation among sport-active
adolescent substance users. Connections, 27(1), 47-63.
Hill, R. A., &
Dunbar, R. I. M. (2003). Social Network Size in Humans. Human Nature, 14(1),
53-72.
Killworth, Peter,
Eugene Johnsen, H Russell Bernard, Gene Ann Shelley, and Christopher McCarthy.
1990. Estimating the Size of Personal Networks. Social Networks 12:
289-312.
McCarty, Christopher,
Killworth, Peter, Bernard, Russell, Johnson, Eugene, and Shelley Gene (2001).
Comparing Two Methods for Estimating Network Size. Human Organization.
Week 7 (February 28) – Popularity, Centrality and Prestige
Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994). Chapter 6:
Centrality and prestige. In Social
Network Analysis: Methods and Applications.
Freeman, Linton. (1979). Centrality in Social
Networks: Conceptual Clarification. Social
Networks 1: 215-39.
Borgatti, Stephen. (2005).
Centrality and Network Flow. Social
Networks 27(1): 55-71.
Krebs, V. (2002).
Uncloaking Terrorist Networks. First Monday, 7(4).
Valente, T., Unger,
J., & Johnson, A. (2005). Do popular students smoke? The association
between popularity and smoking among middle school students. Journal of
Adolescent Health, 37, 323-329.
Week 8 (March 6) –
Measurement
Zwijze-Koning, K.,
& Jong, M. D. T. D. (2005). Auditing Information Structures in
Organizations. Organizational Research methods, 8(4), 429-453.
Marin, Alexandra & Keith Hampton (2007).
Simplifying the Personal Network Name Generator: Alternatives to Traditional
Multiple and Single Name Generators. Field Methods 19(2), 163-193.
Lin,
van der Gaag, Martin & Tom .A.B. Snijders. (2005).
The Resource Generator: Social Capital Quantification with Concrete Items. Social Networks 27(1): 1-29.
Fu, Yang-chih (2007). Contact Diaries: Building
Archives of Actual and Comprehensive Personal Networks. Field Methods 19(2), 194-217.
McCarty, Christopher, Molina, Jose Luis, Aguilar,
Claudia, &
Berman, Peter & Parigi, Paolo (2004). Cloning
Headless Frogs and Other Important Matters. Social
Forces 83(2): 535-557.
Huisman, Mark and Marijtje A.J. van Duijn. 2005.
Software for Social Network Analysis. Pp. 270-316 in Peter Carrington, John
Scott, and Stanley Wasserman (eds) Models
and Methods in Social Network Analysis.
Week 9
(March 13) – Spring Break (NO CLASS!)
Week 10 (March
20) – Presentations.
Week 11
(March 27) – Computer Networks as Social Networks I.
Kronholz , June (2003, February 13). After the Science
Fair: Dear World, Please Stop Writing Me: A Girl's E-Mail Experiment Clogs
In-Box for Weeks. The Wall Street Journal:
A1.
Wellman, Barry and Milena Gulia. 1999. Net-Surfers
Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities. Pp. 331-366 in Networks in the Global Village, edited
by Barry Wellman.
Baym, N., Zhang, Y. B., & Lin, M.-C. (2004).
Social Interactions Across Media: Interpersonal Communication on the Internet,
Telephone and Face-to-Face. New Media
& Society, 6(3), 299-318.
Hampton, Keith & Barry Wellman (2003). Neighboring
in Netville: How the Internet Supports Community and Social Capital in a Wired
Suburb. City and Community 2(4),
277-311.
Hampton, Keith (2007). Neighborhoods in the Network
Society: The e-Neighbors Study. Information,
Communication & Society 10(5). 714-748.
Hampton, Keith (forthcoming). The Internet as a Local
Media for Social and Political Engagement: i-neighbors.org. Urban Studies.
Mesch, Gustavo, & Talmud, Ilan. (2007). Similarity
and the Quality of Online and Offline Social Relationships Among Adolescents in
Week 12 (April 3) –
Computer Networks as Social Networks II.
Marks, Paul (2006, June 9). Pentagon sets its sights
on social networking websites. New
Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025556.200
Ellison, N., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007).
The Benefits of Facebook ‘Friends:’ Social Capital and College Students’ Use of
Online Social Network Sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4).
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html
Miyata, Kakuko, Boase, Jeffrey., & Wellman, Barry
(2008). The Social Effects of Keitai and Personal Computer E-mail in
Hampton, Keith & Neeti Gupta (forthcoming).
Community and Social Interaction in the
Hampton, Keith, et al (forthcoming). WiFi and Public
Space, a Poor Interface? An Empirical Study of Wireless Internet Use and
Sociability.
Wellman, Barry (2001). Physical Place and
Vascellaro, Jessica (2007, January 16). Social
Networking by Cellphone – More Companies Roll Out GPS services That Locate Your
Friends – Or Your Kids. The Wall Street
Journal, B1.
Week 13 (April 10) – Search, Diffusion, Contagion,
Influence, Opinion and Adoption
Rogers,
Coleman, James S., Elihu Katz, and H. Menzel. 1957.
“The Diffusion of an Innovation Among Physicians.” Sociometry 20: 253-270.
Weimann, Gabriel. 1982. On the Importance of
Marginality: One More Step into the Two-Step Flow of Communication. American Sociological Review 47(6):
764-773.
Burt, Ronald. (1999).
The Social Capital of Opinion Leaders. Annals
of the
Krassa, M. A. (1988).
Social Groups, Selective Perception, and Behavioral Contagion in Public
Opinion. Social Networks, 10:
109-136.
Markus, Lynne (1987). Toward a ‘Critical Mass’ Theory
of Interactive Media: Universal Access, Interdependences and Diffusion.
Communication Research 14(5): 491-511.
DiMaggio, Paul & Cohen, Joseph (2005). Information
Inequality and Network Externalities: A Comparative Study of the Diffusion of
Television and the Internet. Pp 227-288 in The
Economic Sociology of Capitalism, edited by Victor Nee and Richard
Swedberg.
Ivkovic, Zoran &
Weisbenner, Scott (2007). Information Diffusion Effects in Individual
Investors’ Common Stock Purchases: Covet Thy Neighbors’ Investment Choices. The Review of Financial Studies 20(4):
1327-1357.
Metcalf, Bob (2006,
August 18). Guest Blogger Bob Metcalf’s Law Recurses Down the Long Tail of
Social Networks. VCMike’s Blog. Retrieved on January 1, 2007: http://vcmike.wordpress.com/2006/08/18/metcalfe-social-networks/
Week 14 (April 17) – Health
Cohen, S., Brissette,
Dickens, C.M., L. McGowen, C. Percival, J. Douglas, B.
Tomensen, L. Cotter, A Heagerty, and F.H. Creed. (2004). Lack of Close
Confidant, but not Depression, Predicts Further Cardiac Events After Myocardial
Infraction. Heart 90(5): 518-522.
Bearman, P. S., Moody,
J., & Stovel, K. (2004). Chains of Affection: The Structure of Adolescent
Romantic and Sexual Networks. American Journal of Sociology, 110(1),
44-91.
O'Brien MA, Oxman AD,
Haynes RB,
Christakis, N.A. & Fowler, J.H. (2007). The Spread
of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years. The
West, E., Barron., D.N., Dowsett, J., &
Week 15
(April 24) – Social Inequality
Fernandez, Roberto and David Harris. (1992). Social
Isolation and the Underclass. Pp. 257-293 in
Drugs, Crime, and Social Isolation, edited by Adele Harrell and George
Peterson: The Urban Institute.
Marsden, Peter, and Jeanne Hurlbert. (1988). Social
Resources and Mobility Outcomes. Social
Forces 66:1038-1059.