Social Networking Analysis

After the study of last 3 lectures, I have learnt some important concepts about the social network analysis (SNA) and known how to use the calculation method like matrix or formulas to deal with the actual problems during our social-networking life. Here I will take an example to share with you and I really expect to hear your comments.

Firstly, I got to know that Social Network Analysis is the study of the pattern of interaction between actors. A social network is a group of collaborating individuals or entities that are related to each other, and in SNA, Social Network is formally defined as a set of social actors, or nodes, members that are connected by one or more types of relations. During the three lectures what impressed most is that Prof. Chan showed us the sociogram of our blogosphere to let us find the interaction of our own to others’ blogs and we can easily find that Su Jing and Helei Cui are the most two prominent actors with other students for they are in the middle of the sociogram. 

However, what is sociogram and how to make the sociogram is really a question that need to be answer. Sociogram is a graphical representation of social networks. Some other phenomenons in our daily can be explain by sociogram such as weibo and blog. I think that everyone is familiar with the scenes below and this is social networking. Next I want to discuss how to achieve the sociagram with the example in the following.

A Simple Social Network

 Graphical representation (sociogram)

·A Simple Social Network

Denote the set of g actors by N={n1,n2,…ng,},for the ordered pair <n_i, n_j>, define x_ij as the value of the tie from the n_i (the i^th actor) to n_j (the j^th actor) on the relation.

· Actor Centrality and Actor Prestige

Actor centrality: Prominent actors are those that are extensively involved in relationships with other actors.

Centralized and decentralized network： 

 General centralization index:

Actor degree centrality:

 Define C_D(n_i) as an actor-level degree centrality index:

The normalized actor degree centrality:

There are three types of exercise about Group Closeness Centralization:

So with these formulas and methods above, we can easily find the relationship between people in social networking as well as find the prominence. However, I need to learn more about SNA because it can help us know social networking better.