scholarly journals Taking sociality seriously: the structure of multi-dimensional social networks as a source of information for individuals

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1599) ◽  
pp. 2108-2118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Barrett ◽  
S. Peter Henzi ◽  
David Lusseau

Understanding human cognitive evolution, and that of the other primates, means taking sociality very seriously. For humans, this requires the recognition of the sociocultural and historical means by which human minds and selves are constructed, and how this gives rise to the reflexivity and ability to respond to novelty that characterize our species. For other, non-linguistic, primates we can answer some interesting questions by viewing social life as a feedback process, drawing on cybernetics and systems approaches and using social network neo-theory to test these ideas. Specifically, we show how social networks can be formalized as multi-dimensional objects, and use entropy measures to assess how networks respond to perturbation. We use simulations and natural ‘knock-outs’ in a free-ranging baboon troop to demonstrate that changes in interactions after social perturbations lead to a more certain social network, in which the outcomes of interactions are easier for members to predict. This new formalization of social networks provides a framework within which to predict network dynamics and evolution, helps us highlight how human and non-human social networks differ and has implications for theories of cognitive evolution.

Author(s):  
Ryan Light ◽  
James Moody

This chapter provides an introduction to this volume on social networks. It argues that social network analysis is greater than a method or data, but serves as a central paradigm for understanding social life. The chapter offers evidence of the influence of social network analysis with a bibliometric analysis of research on social networks. This analysis underscores how pervasive network analysis has become and highlights key theoretical and methodological concerns. It also introduces the sections of the volume broadly structured around theory, methods, broad conceptualizations like culture and temporality, and disciplinary contributions. The chapter concludes by discussing several promising new directions in the field of social network analysis.


Social networks fundamentally shape our lives. Networks channel the ways that information, emotions, and diseases flow through populations. Networks reflect differences in power and status in settings ranging from small peer groups to international relations across the globe. Network tools even provide insights into the ways that concepts, ideas and other socially generated contents shape culture and meaning. As such, the rich and diverse field of social network analysis has emerged as a central tool across the social sciences. This Handbook provides an overview of the theory, methods, and substantive contributions of this field. The thirty-three chapters move through the basics of social network analysis aimed at those seeking an introduction to advanced and novel approaches to modeling social networks statistically. The Handbook includes chapters on data collection and visualization, theoretical innovations, links between networks and computational social science, and how social network analysis has contributed substantively across numerous fields. As networks are everywhere in social life, the field is inherently interdisciplinary and this Handbook includes contributions from leading scholars in sociology, archaeology, economics, statistics, and information science among others.


2009 ◽  
pp. 67-84
Author(s):  
Marco Solimene

- The present contribution examines the rootedness of a community of xoraxané romá in the city of Rome; rather than simply the continuity of presence in a specific territory, under consideration is the development and maintenance of social networks with the Roman population, specifically in the territories romá reside and/or work in. Further on, the paper describes how rootedness may be conjugated with some forms of mobility: on the one hand, the continuity in specific areas (of work and in some cases of residence), can be maintained through practices of urban circulation; on the other hand, especially when mobility turns on national and transnational scale, the presence - although mobile and changing - of romá who belong to the same social network, spread among different territories, enables singular domestic units to maintain, despite mobility, a continuity with several non-rom realities.


Author(s):  
И.В. Нечта

Предложен новый метод передачи скрытых сообщений в социальных сетях на примере сети “Вконтакте”, позволяющий через структуру графа друзей пользователя внедрять секретные сообщения. Получены количественные оценки объема внедряемого сообщения в графы различного размера. Показана необходимость добавления избыточности во внедряемое сообщение. Представленный метод позволяет использовать другие графоподобные структуры социальной сети для внедрения скрытых сообщений. Purpose. This article addresses the construction of a new method for transmission of hidden messages in social networks. Methodology. The research employs methods of information theory, probability theory and mathematical statistics The Shannon entropy is used as the statistics for the analysis of an embedded message. Findings. The author proposed using the graphical structures of social networks as a container for the secret message transmission for the first time. As an example, the popular Vkontakte network is considered. The main idea of the method involves using the structure of the user’s friends graph to embed a secret message. Based on the available vertices (friends’ accounts), a complete graph is constructed, and its edges are enumerated. Each edge of the graph corresponds to one bit of the message being embedded: the bit is “1”, if the edge is present in the graph (one account in friends of the other), the bit is “0” if the edge is missing. To transfer the graph from one person to another, a key vertex is used. The specified vertex is connected by an edge with each connected component of the graph, which allows the graph to be transmitted using a single node and take into account all the vertices (including isolated ones). When retrieving a message, the key vertex and the edges connected to it are not considered. Conclusions. During the experimental research, it was shown that messages extracted from an empty container differ from the encrypted message by the probability distribution of bits. The necessity of adding redundancy to transmitted secret messages is shown with the purpose of “leveling” the statistical properties of an empty and filled container. The results of the experiment have showed that this method of steganography allows embedding a large amount of information into various social network structures represented in the form of a graph. It was noted in the paper that potentially “narrow” place of the algorithm is registration of new accounts. The restrictions imposed by the administration of some social networks for security purposes do not always allow automatic registration of new accounts, which makes the process of message embedding more difficult.


2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (07) ◽  
pp. 2281-2288 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUYONG PARK ◽  
OSCAR CELMA ◽  
MARKUS KOPPENBERGER ◽  
PEDRO CANO ◽  
JAVIER M. BULDÚ

In this paper, we analyze two social network datasets of contemporary musicians constructed from allmusic.com (AMG), a music and artists' information database: one is the collaboration network in which two musicians are connected if they have performed or produced an album together, and the other is the similarity network in which they are connected if they were musically similar according to the music experts. We find that, while both networks exhibit typical features of social networks such as high transitivity (clustering), we find that they differ significantly in some key network features such as the degree and the betweenness distributions. We believe that this highlights the fundamental differences in the construction mechanism (self-organized collaboration and human-perceived similarity) of the new networks.


Author(s):  
Ruchi Mittal ◽  
M.P.S Bhatia

Nowadays, social media is one of the popular modes of interaction and information diffusion. It is commonly found that the main source of information diffusion is done by some entities and such entities are also called as influencers. An influencer is an entity or individual who has the ability to influence others because of his/her relationship or connection with his/her audience. In this article, we propose a methodology to classify influencers from multi-layer social networks. A multi-layer social network is the same as a single layer social network depict that it includes multiple properties of a node and modeled them into multiple layers. The proposed methodology is a fusion of machine learning techniques (SVM, neural networks and so on) with centrality measures. We demonstrate the proposed algorithm on some real-life networks to validate the effectiveness of the approach in multi-layer systems.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-31
Author(s):  
Elena A. Kartushina

Being a global language English undergoes certain changes and acquires different varieties known as pre-pidgin forms when English serves as a lexificator language. The number of these “Worlds Englishes” is constantly growing and changing, but on the other hand, based on some personal perceptions, we could notice certain reluctance among linguists to examine and describe the language fusions of such kind. The author analyses the concept of World Englishes noting that there is no unity among both Russian and Western linguists towards the terminology and types of World Englishes. Another review covers the mixture of English and Finnish under question that was formed in the US. Special attention is paid to the pshyco-linguistic theories explaining the emergence of both types of pre-pidgins. The author used social network Twitter with “Finglish” as a hash tag as the material for the study. To give a certain estimate to the pragmatic side of it it also carried out a contextual analysis of all the twits with the respective hash tag. The research interest is to specify the connotation, i. e. pragmatic aspect of it that micro context of a twit post might reveal. Overall, we have analyzed 398 twit inscriptions dated from 2009 until 2018. The paper describes three types of pragmatic attitudes to Finglish: neutral (which is typical to the code switching), irony and negative. It is almost impossible to predict whether this pre-pidgin form will develop further or would be restricted (with variable degree of frequency) by social networks and/or informal aural communication, but what is certain is that this form of the language takes place at present and thus linguists cannot ignore it.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-17
Author(s):  
Octalina Hardiyanti ◽  
Agustin Nurmanina

ABSTRACT: Utilization of the Center for Orangutan Protection (COP) 2 social network in Kalimantan. With the limited number of human resources compared to the wide scope of work in all of Kalimantan, COP makes use of its social networks to meet the needs and the functioning of the organization. In investigative activities, COP has effectively used weak ties to obtain information on the whereabouts of orangutans and the destruction of their habitat. The policies in this activity are also dominated by central actors through their power networks which result in network stability. In contrast to the use of social networks for educational activities, local actors are more dominant in making program policies and work patterns. In the alternation between actors from time to time, there are differences in assumptions and work patterns of the actors in charge, resulting in differences in utilization results and potential network damage. COP can utilize its social network in fulfilling its function as an NGO campaigning for the protection and rescue of orangutans, but on the other hand, COP's bonding social network only connects this NGO with similar organizations, limited to handling cases of orangutans and their habitat. Supporting nature conservation, such as economic, social, and cultural, as part of the needs of the community around the ring habitat is not fulfilled. ABSTRAK: Pemanfaatan jaringan sosial Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP)2 di Kalimantan. Dengan keterbatasan jumlah SDM dibanding luasnya cakupan kerja di seluruh Kalimantan, COP memanfaatkan jaringan sosialnya untuk memenuhi kebutuhan dan berjalannya fungsi organisasi. Dalam kegiatan investigasi COP efektif menggunakan ikatan lemah untuk memperoleh informasi keberadaan orangutan dan perusakan habitatnya. Kebijakan dalam aktivitas ini pun didominasi aktor pusat melalui jaringan powernya yang menghasilkan stabilitas jaringan. Berbeda dengan pemanfaatan jaringan sosial untuk kegiatan edukasi, aktor lokal lebih dominan mengambil kebijakan program dan pola kerja. Dalam pergantian antar aktor pada masa ke masa terdapat perbedaan asumsi dan pola kerja aktor-aktor yang bertugas sehingga menimbulkan perbedaan hasil pemanfaatan hingga potensi terjadinya kerusakan jaringan. COP mampu memanfaatkan jaringan sosialnya dalam memenuhi fungsinya sebagai LSM yang mengkampanyekan perlindungan dan penyelamatan orangutan, namun sisi lainnya jaringan sosial COP yang bersifat bonding (tertutup) hanya menghubungkan LSM ini dengan organisasi sejenis terbatas pada penanganan kasus orangutan dan habitatnya. Pendukung konservasi alam seperti ekonomi, sosial dan budaya sebagai bagian dari kebutuhan masyarakat di sekitar ring habitat tak terpenuhi.


PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e8712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brianne Beisner ◽  
Niklas Braun ◽  
Márton Pósfai ◽  
Jessica Vandeleest ◽  
Raissa D’Souza ◽  
...  

Members of a society interact using a variety of social behaviors, giving rise to a multi-faceted and complex social life. For the study of animal behavior, quantifying this complexity is critical for understanding the impact of social life on animals’ health and fitness. Multilayer network approaches, where each interaction type represents a different layer of the social network, have the potential to better capture this complexity than single layer approaches. Calculating individuals’ centrality within a multilayer social network can reveal keystone individuals and more fully characterize social roles. However, existing measures of multilayer centrality do not account for differences in the dynamics and functionality across interaction layers. Here we validate a new method for quantifying multiplex centrality called consensus ranking by applying this method to multiple social groups of a well-studied nonhuman primate, the rhesus macaque. Consensus ranking can suitably handle the complexities of animal social life, such as networks with different properties (sparse vs. dense) and biological meanings (competitive vs. affiliative interactions). We examined whether individuals’ attributes or socio-demographic factors (sex, age, dominance rank and certainty, matriline size, rearing history) were associated with multiplex centrality. Social networks were constructed for five interaction layers (i.e., aggression, status signaling, conflict policing, grooming and huddling) for seven social groups. Consensus ranks were calculated across these five layers and analyzed with respect to individual attributes and socio-demographic factors. Generalized linear mixed models showed that consensus ranking detected known social patterns in rhesus macaques, showing that multiplex centrality was greater in high-ranking males with high certainty of rank and females from the largest families. In addition, consensus ranks also showed that females from very small families and mother-reared (compared to nursery-reared) individuals were more central, showing that consideration of multiple social domains revealed individuals whose social centrality and importance might otherwise have been missed.


Author(s):  
Thomas Carrier-Lafleur

Cet article propose d’analyser deux aspects majeurs, et pourtant méconnus, d’À la recherche du temps perdu : d’une part, celui d’« imaginaire médiatique », d’autre part, celui de « dynamique du regard ». Tous deux sont propres au XIXe siècle français, espace-temps d’inventions majeures pour notre modernité culturelle et artistique. Le texte proustien, un pied dans le XIEe siècle et l’autre dans le XXe, apparaît ainsi comme un catalyseur et comme un passeur. Le « temps retrouvé » de la Recherche, c’est aussi celui d’un XIXe siècle rendu sensible par le roman, médiatisé par l’œuvre. Le déploiement et la floraison de ces deux thématiques (la première questionnant la problématique de la mondanité et l’autre celle de l’imaginaire de l’œil et de la vision) seront relevés de façon générale dans la Recherche, puis on proposera deux études de cas ― sur le journal et sur la photographie ― qui viendront les illustrer.AbstractThis article proposes to analyze two major aspects of the novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In search of lost time/Remembrance of things past), by Marcel Proust: on one hand, what is called “l’imaginaire médiatique”, on the other hand, “la dynamique du regard”. Both are specific to the 19th century in France, time and place of major inventions for our cultural and artistic modernity. The proustian novel, a foot in the 19th century and the other in the 20th, seems thus like a catalyst and a frontier runner. The “time regained” by In search of lost time is also that of the 19th century, precisely mediated by the novel. The deployment of these two sets of themes (the first questioning the problems of “mondanité” — social life, social network, social gossip and so on —, the second those of vision in a civilization of the eye) will be generally identified in the novel, after which two case studies (on newspapers and on photography) will be proposed to illustrate them.


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