Carrington and Scott (2011) ‘Introduction.’
Citation: Carrington, Peter J. and Scott, John (2011) ‘Introduction’ to Peter J. Carrington and John Scott (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Social Network Analysis, London: SAGE, pp. 1-8.
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Carrington and Scott (2011:4): Defines social network analysis as “the analysis of systems of social relationships represented by networks.”
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Carrington and Scott (2011): Researchers began to examine the nature of social structures in the 1930s; major advances were pioneered in the 1950s by researchers at the University of Manchester, where social anthropologists criticized American sociology for focusing on social harmony and instead introduced the idea of conflict and divisions; Harrison White and colleagues had by the late 1960s started to develop a formal methodology for social network analysis; at the turn of the century, renewed interest was stimulated by physicists taking up analysis of social networks — while they demonstrated little awareness of previous research, they brought to the fore the importance of accounting for network dynamics and temporal change.
Carrington and Scott (2011): Places graph theory at the heart of SNA, which originated from Euler’s mathematical attempt to see whether it was possible to walk through Koenigsberg only crossing each of its seven bridges only once by converting it into an abstract model of points (islands) and lines (bridges).
Carrington and Scott (2011): Network data on social relationships are typically drawn as a square matrix, with rows and columns representing actors and the cells indicating the presence or absence of a connection. Most analyses use “one-mode” networks, where rows and columns represent the same set of points (e.g. the actors); some, however, use “two-mode” networks where the rows and columns represent different types of data (e.g. rows represent actors, columns represent events or organisations they were involved in).
Carrington and Scott (2011): Network analysis can measure the overall density of networks, the relative centrality of actors within it, cliques and clusters, structural divisions, brokerage.
Carrington and Scott (2011:5): Matrix-based algebraic approach used by Harrison White looks at the “structural properties of the social positions (or ‘statuses’) occupied by individuals and the performed roles that are associated with these positions.” This positional approach, which contrasts with looking at the properties of individuals, is sometimes called “block models.”
Carrington and Scott (2011:5): “Standard sampling procedures and statistical procedures such as significance tests, regression, and the analysis of variance cannot usually be employed in social network analysis as their assumption of the independence of observations does not hold for network data; indeed, it is the assumption of the interdependence of social actors that is the basis of network analysis.”
Carrington and Scott (2011:5): View SNA as a “paradigm,” consisting of theories, methods and a body of empirical data, rather than specifially a “theory” or “method.”