Current Research in Social Network Theory

by

Jason Ethier

ethier@ccs.neu.edu

1 Introduction

In this paper I will discuss some of the most state of the art research being done in
the field of social network theory. I will briefly cover some of the technology and theory
behind the research, but will mainly focus on the sociological implications. There are vast
arrays of topics being studied in social network theory and this paper covers a range of
the most important and interesting research. The study of social networks is important
since it helps us to better understand how and why we interact with each other, as well as
how technology can alter this interaction. The field of social network theory has grown
considerably during the past few years as advanced computing technology has opened the
door for new research. Before delving into the current research, I will present a brief
introduction to the foundations of social network theory.

1.1 Introduction to Social Network Theory

Social network theory is a branch of social science that applies to a wide range of
human organizations, from small groups of people to entire nations. The term network
refers to a set of objects, or nodes, and a mapping or description of the relationship
between the objects. In the case of social networks, the objects refer to people or groups
of people. For example, a network might consist of a person and a mapping from that
person to each of his or her friends and relatives. These mapping can be directional or bi-
directional. An example of a directional mapping would be if person A liked person B,
but person B did not like person A. This is a directional mapping from person A to person
B. An example of a bi-directional mapping would be if person A and person B both liked
each other.

One of the reasons social network theory is studied is that by understanding the
mappings connecting one individual to others, one can evaluate the social capital of that
individual. “Social capital refers to the network position of the object or node and
consists of the ability to draw on the resources contained by members of the network”
[1]. Basically the more mappings a person has in the social network and the more
mappings these people have, the more knowledge, influence, and power the original
person will control. Social capital can have a substantial influence on a person’s life;
affecting such aspects as job searches and potential for promotions. Social networks can
also help sociologists identify primary groups and cliques. I will now discuss some of the
current research in the field of social network theory.

2 Social Network Theory and the Formation of Public Opinion

One of the questions researchers are working on is how social network theories
can describe the formation of public opinions. Most researchers in this area are
concentrating on the political power of social networks. The question of how networks
influence political agency and behavior is of tremendous theoretical and practical interest.
These researchers believe that collective action, voting choices, and other methods of
political participation are controlled by social networks. They try to simulate collective
processes of public opinion formation in order to better understand exactly how social
networks influence politics. Researchers have developed models of how opinion changes
occur in a network. “Actors increase their interest to participate in public processes if
connected with others with higher interest levels who contribute and they decrease their
interest if connected to others with a lower level who defect” [2]. In this way collective
action occurs only if there is a positive correlation between interest and power. Thus a
population having differing levels of interest is found to have positive effects on
increasing the population’s potential for participation. Whereas populations in which all
the participants share the same level of interest tends to stifle political participation.

Other researchers have developed a model of collective behavior in analogy to

physical systems. In this model each actor possesses a strength factor of opinion and the
probability of choosing an opinion is proportional to the number of actors who hold that
opinion. Thus the likelihood of a group coming to a certain consensus depends on the
group distribution of opinion. These researchers study what conditions are necessary for a
group to change opinions and how this is dependent on the size of the group. They also
study a form of social automata in which actors interact only with those in their vicinity
according to some well-defined rules. The goal is to study any group patterns that emerge
from this interaction according to fixed rules. What these researchers are most interested
in are abrupt state transitions from group consensus to near consensus to nonconsensus
within well-ordered pockets of opinion [2].

Citizen involvement in political institutions, and individual decision-making

about voting and participation, is considered to depend on social psychological
perceptions and beliefs, social forces impinging upon the citizen and social interactions
among citizens. This suggests that there should be a relationship between social
connectedness and political participation. A model of this behavior is one in which
individuals are seen as parts of loosely knit, flexible networks in which information
transmission occurs through political discussions. People form their opinions on the basis
of the perceived quality of the information from individual discussions. This leads some
researchers to believe that the formation of public opinion is like collecting the
conclusions of thousands of individuals serving on different juries. In this view there are
many small groups with a formed opinion, and there is much variance between the
opinions of different groups. These differing small group opinions combine to form the
overall group opinion. Thus in order to win an election, a candidate’s supporters must
convince those with the most social capital within each small group in order to have the
possibility of winning the support of the majority of small groups.

3 Construction of Reputation for Network Members

Social networks can be especially important in the construction of a person’s

reputation. This is especially apparent in online marketplaces such as eBay. eBay is an
example of a large multi-user system where interpersonal communication between
members is scarce. In systems such as this, it can be very difficult for members to build a
reputation without the aide of specific tools for this purpose. Reputation can be defined as
the common or general estimate of a person with respect to character or other qualities.
This estimate is necessarily formed and updated over time with the help of different
sources of information. Sociologists have been studying how social networks can be used
to update and analyze trust and reputation. These studies show that it is possible to say a
lot about the behavior of individuals using the information obtained from the analysis of
their social networks.

3.1 Application to E-Commerce Communities

Researchers have created a model to describe how reputation is determined in an

e-commerce community. Their model considers three types of relationships between
community members. These relationships are competition, cooperation, and trade.
Competition is the type of relation found between two or more members that pursue the
same goals and need the same scarce resources. Competition generally has a negative
impact on the reputations of those involved. Cooperation implies significant exchange of
sincere information between the members and some form of predisposition to help each
other. Cooperation tends to improve the reputations of members who participate. Trade
reflects the existence of commercial transactions between two agents and is compatible
with either cooperative or competitive relations. Trade generally helps a member’s
reputation but can also hurt it. This model also uses three types of social reputation
depending on the information source. These are witness, neighborhood, and system
reputations. Witness reputation is based on the information about a member coming from
other members who share a relationship with that member. Neighborhood reputation uses
the social environment of the member, that is, the neighbors of the member and their
relations with it. System reputation is a default reputation value based on the relations the
member is currently engaged in and has belonged to in the past. For example, those
members who have consistent competition relationships will receive a negative system
reputation value [3].

The use of the social network analysis techniques as part of a reputation system
opens a new field for experimentation. Once you introduce the social dimension in
reputation evaluation and the members start to take into account social relations, it
becomes more and more important to consider not only which is the reputation of the
other members, but also what can a member do to get and maintain a good reputation.
Efficient methods of evaluating reputations can lead to more hospitable relations among
members of the community. Users may be less inclined to enter competitive relations
when they know the competition may hurt their reputation. The information researchers
have gathered can be used to improve current methods of reputation evaluation on e-
commerce websites.

4 Power and Stability Within Groups

Recently there has been considerable research on the topics of power within social
networks and the stability of networks. Stability is determined by the likelihood of
members leaving one group for another due to dissatisfaction with the members of the
original group. The first major question researchers are studying is: what characteristics
are associated with stable networks? What researchers have found is that a balance of
power within a social network is necessary for stability within the network. These
researchers conclude that only strong power networks are unstable. A strong power
network is characterized by some members owning complete power at the expense of
other members. This contrast in power levels causes friction between members of the
network and will eventually lead to instability. This social friction is avoided in networks
where each member shares a relatively equal amount of power. People are more likely to
stay in a group where they share equal power with their peers [4].

Another important question asked by these researchers is: if members of a

network migrate when they are dissatisfied with their power, is the result inevitably a
network of equal power? The answer researchers have found to this question is no.
Groups where members have been divided into a hierarchy of power tend to continue this
process of division of power even if the group becomes unstable. Their research has
shown that, surprisingly, as the group becomes small enough that those members with the
highest power can no longer exert their power on weaker members, a new hierarchy of
power will emerge. This research has implications for the study of social networks in
politics, networks in the workplace, as well as networks and discrimination. Researchers
are currently working on exactly how power is first introduced into the social network in
order to obtain a better grasp of the entire evolutionary process of stability and power
within social networks.

5 Groups as Dynamical Systems

Other researchers have attempted to describe the behavior of small groups as

complex or dynamical systems. This presents a different method of inquiry for the study
of groups. An overview of this method is as follows. In small groups local action consists
of recursive, nonlinear interaction among many different people or elements. Local group
process creates, activates, replicates, and adjusts dynamic links in a coordination
network. This can be thought of as an interaction among many local variables. From local
action, patterns on the global level emerge. These are behavioral and cognitive patterns
such as group norms, cohesion, division of labor, a role system and influence structure,
and temporal patterns such as cycles of conflict and consensus. These global patterns can
be thought of as global variables that emerge from local interaction and then structure
subsequent local action.
 Local action for any given group shows regularities or patterns, which can be
modeled as a set of rules that the system follows. The interaction among local level
elements may be highly complicated; however the rules governing the action and
interaction of group elements are often relatively simple. The researchers believe that the
rules guiding local action and which global patterns emerge from the operation of these
rules, depends on initial conditions. The entire pattern of global dynamics that emerges
from this local action may shift when one of these initial conditions is slightly altered.

Given the range of potential interactions among local variables, it is not possible
to predict the individual and joint values of these variables accurately, even if their values
are known with high accuracy at a particular point in time. Other complex systems, such
as the weather, whose behavior depends largely on interactions among local elements, are
predictable only in the short term. These predictions are for global variables such as
overall weather patterns, not local variables such as the exact path of a tornado. However,
patterns of key global variables do show substantial regularities over time. One similarity
of almost all dynamical systems is that global variables settle over time into relatively
small regions of possibilities for that variable. If these regions can be identified in the
study of social networks, it would greatly enhance the predictive capabilities of social
network theory. These researchers are attempting to track the characteristics of social
networks through different states, as reflected in the pattern of global variables over time.
If they are successful it would not only provide them with a better understanding of how
certain factors influence social networks, but it would also allow them to better predict
the behavior of social groups of all sizes [5].

6 Similarities Between Computer and Human Networks

Knowledge of human networks can also be applied to the design of computer

networks. Computer networks are put in place to support human networks; person-to-
person exchanges of information, knowledge, ideas, opinions, insights, and advice.
Researchers are working on ways to apply the algorithms of social network analysis to
designing computer networks. Social network analysts look at complex human systems as
an interconnected system of nodes (people and groups) and ties (relationships and flows)
much like an internetwork of routers and links. Human networks are often unplanned,
emergent systems. Network ties often end up being unevenly distributed, with some areas
of the network sparsely connected. These are called small world networks. Computer
networks often end up with similar patterns of connections, dense interconnectivity
within subnetworks, and sparser connections uniting subnetworks into a larger
internetwork.

Human networks, like computer networks, can be subject to the limitation of a

single point of failure. In human networks people at times can play the role of broker or
connection between two different smaller groups. If this person changes their location in
the human network, the two groups will no longer be able to communicate and the human
network may start to break down. One of the most important ways to obtain social capital
in a human network is to have the shortest path to as many others as possible.
Maximizing closeness between all routers improves updating and minimizes hop counts.
The shorter the path, the fewer hops/steps it takes to go from one node to another. In
human networks, short paths imply quicker communication with less distortion. In
computer networks many short paths connecting all nodes will be more efficient in
passing data and reconfiguring after a topology change [6].

In a recent network design book, Advanced IP Network Design, the authors define
a well-designed topology as the basis of a well-behaved and stable network. They
propose the idea that, “…three competing goals must be balanced for good network
design: reducing hop count, reducing available paths, and increasing the number of
failures the network can withstand” [7]. Social network algorithms can assist in meeting
all three of these goals. Reducing the hop count infers minimizing the average path length
throughout the network. This can be done by maximizing the closeness of all nodes to
each other. Reducing the available paths leads to minimizing the number of shortest paths
between members in the network. Increasing the number of failures a network can
withstand focuses on minimizing the centralization of the entire network. Social network
models can model our computer networks and suggest link changes to form an effective
topology that has a short average hop count, not too many paths, and just enough
redundancy.

7 Social Networks and Personal Health

Recently there has been research into the study of the implications of social
integration for personal health. This research has shown that participation in a diverse
social network may have an influence on health. The researchers chose to study social
network diversity (number of social roles) and susceptibility to the common cold in
people experimentally exposed to a cold virus. What they have found is that the greater
the social diversity of the person, the lesser his or her susceptibility to infectious illness
will be. Despite these results, the researchers were not able to isolate the pathways
through which social diversity was associated with susceptibility. The leading hypothesis
is that as social diversity increases, the level of exposure to a certain illness also
increases. Thus the immune system is better prepared to defend itself against any future
exposure to the sickness. However, the researchers have so far not been able to
thoroughly support this hypothesis experimentally. What this research does show is
another strong benefit of having high social diversity or social capital [8].

The results found by these researchers are quite surprising, “The magnitude of the
health risk of being relatively isolated (socially) is comparable to the risks associated
with cigarette smoking, high blood pressure and obesity and is robust even after
controlling for these and other traditional risk factors” [8]. It appears that cultural
isolation can have a profound effect on physical well being. Their research has also
shown that the development of mental illness is associated with the level of social contact
a person has. Some researchers believe that this is due to the fact that people’s identities
are tied to their social roles. By meeting role expectations, individuals are given the
opportunity to enhance their self-esteem. They believe that these social roles provide a
purpose to life. They imply that a sense of purpose is an integral component of
psychological well being.
7.1 Limitations of Social Network Research in the Field of Health

The social network measures used in studies of health outcomes are not as
advanced as those involved in formal social network analysis. A major reason for this is
that studies of health outcomes typically involve large samples and include multiple
questionnaires or interviews. For these studies, intensive quantitative measurement is
reserved for the rare cases in which the researcher determines that there exists sufficient
need for it. Thus the social network results in this type of research do not always hold up
to the same academic rigor as other research in the field of social networks does. This
does not discredit the research described above. However, it does propose that further
research is required before these conclusions can be adequately supported.

8 Marketing Through Social Networks

Research in social networks has also proven to provide great benefits to the field
of marketing. Social networks and their patterns of relationships are a fundamental fact of
market behavior and can be used effectively as a basis for marketing strategies. A major
challenge facing marketing strategists is how to increase the effectiveness of social
network based marketing strategies. In order to reach this goal marketing researchers and
scientists have collected social network related data and have analyzed it using social
network analysis. The study of social networks is beginning to be widely used in
marketing. One of the reasons why it has taken so long to have an impact is because of
the scarcity and difficulty in obtaining the requisite data.

“Network marketing entails distribution of products and services through a

network of independent businesspeople, who in turn either take care of the distribution
themselves or recruit others to do so” [9]. This is one example of using social networks
for the purpose of marketing. Current research is focusing on which types of people this
form of marketing should focus on. Marketing strategists are not only looking for people
with the most social capital, but also people who are associated with others who have
access to a large amount of social capital. Marketing through social networks aims to take
advantage of the social capital of each person who participates. An example of this is
MCI’s “Friends and Family” campaign of the 1990’s. This plan offered discount calls to
residential customers when dialing a telephone number from a list pre-specified by the
customer. The customer in turn must furnish MCI with the names and other information
about the people on the list. These people are then contacted by a sales representative
from MCI in an attempt to induce them to enroll in the plan.

The main questions for researchers in this branch of social network theory are
which types of social networks can be used as a basis for marketing strategy, how to
identify and measure social networks, how to mobilize and manage social networks, and
which marketing decisions can benefit the most from social network concepts and
methods? Some researchers have applied the use of supercomputers to simulate the
performance of marketing geared towards social networks. This technique has helped
researchers to answer the above questions. What they have found is that consumer
networks that are not under the control of a corporation work best for marketing
purposes. An example of such a network is a word-of-mouth communication network in
which people recommend a product to others within their social network. Corporations
identify and measure social networks by collecting information from their customers.
One method of doing this is by distributing discount cards in exchange for customer
information. This field of social network theory is certain to be subject to increased
research as more companies learn of the marketing potential of social networks.

9 Social Networks and the Internet

Researchers at Stanford University have analyzed an online community at the

school known as Club Nexus, in order to determine how the community reflects the real
world community structure within the student body. Club Nexus allows users to chat,
organize events, share opinions and photographs, buy and sell used goods, make
announcements, and meet new people. The club has over 2,000 student members,
comprising more than ten percent of the student population. Each member has a profile
describing themselves and a list of buddies. One advantage of studying online
communities is that they allow researchers to gather data with considerably less effort
than other forms of communities. The researcher’s ability to learn more about the social
network is simply a side effect of users transmitting information digitally.

One interesting tool provided by Club Nexus is the ability to send messages and
invitations to a certain degree of connections in the social network. For example,
members can send a message to the people listed in their buddy list, or the buddies of
each person listed in their buddy list, or the buddies of those buddies, etc. This is one way
of using social networks to communicate with people whom you may not know directly.
Researchers found that the average distance between any two members (measured in the
number of hops along the Nexus network) is only four on average [10]. This result is very
interesting considering that Club Nexus represents a diverse group of users, both
undergraduates and graduates, at various stages in their studies, representing many
different departments.

The researchers analyzed correlations between the profiles users provided and
connections between these users in the social network. This analysis was able to detect
some expected trends, such as people sharing narrow or unusual interests were likely to
become friends. It also uncovered some non-obvious relationships, such as people who
described themselves as being ‘responsible’ being perceived as slightly less ‘cool’ by
other members of the network. What makes online communities such as Club Nexus
unique is that one is able to observe these patterns on a large scale with many different
variables. The richness of this information can be used to model dynamics such as the
spread of ideas on a network or the way that people can find each other through their
contacts. Researchers are now studying how this online community evolves over time
and how social dynamics, such as the adoption of new features introduced to the web site,
affect the community.

9.1 Growth and Profit Potential of Online Communities

 In the past few years many social networking tools such as Club Nexus have
appeared online. Some of these tools created by companies such as Linkin, Ryze,
Friendster, Spoke and VisiblePath, are attempting to profit from the networking
capabilities they provide. When the usefulness and potential profitability of these
applications of social networking are evaluated, we must consider the possibility that the
growing bubble around social networking applications may be about to burst. It’s not that
social networking applications do not have the potential for future benefits. Their main
pitfall is that venture capitalists are pouring money into companies creating these
applications even though many do not have concrete business models. These companies
may be falling into the same trap as many of the dot coms have.

9.2 Instant Messaging and Social Networks

A student at Caltech has created a website (BuddyZoo.com) that applies social

network analysis to AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) buddy lists. Users submit their AIM
buddy lists to the site and BuddyZoo runs various forms of analysis on the data.
BuddyZoo allows users to find out which buddies they have in common with their
friends, measure how popular they are, detect cliques they are a part of, see a
visualization of their buddy list, and see the degree of separation between different screen
names. The degree of separation feature allows users to determine the shortest path from
their buddy list to another person’s screen name (i.e. how many different people’s buddy
lists they would have to go through before reaching the specified screen name). Users can
also view their prestige level, which is computed in a similar way to the method Google
uses to compute page rank for web pages. This prestige level is similar to the social
capital concept discussed earlier. BuddyZoo currently has a database of 7,936,710 unique
screen names that it uses for analysis [11]. This is a good example of an interesting
approach to the study of how technology supports the growth of social networks.

9.3 Difficulties With Online Social Networking Applications

All of the companies listed above have used the Internet as their means of
generating virtual social networks. The Internet is certainly an amplifier for this sort of
social interaction. It is used as a solution to the social networking problem of how to
close the gap of separation between people around the world. Companies are attempting
to find the shortest path to a person, whether they are trying to sell a product, find a date
or locate an old friend. There are three major difficulties involved with the current social
networking solutions available online to solve problems of this sort. “Perhaps the biggest
barrier to social networking solutions’ usefulness is critical mass: getting enough people
to join the network so that people can find each other” [12]. Unless there is a relatively
large body of participants socializing by using the application it just won’t be successful.
The hardest part of recruiting members is getting the initial group to join. Once a small
but committed membership group has been established the size of the group will begin to
grow exponentially as those who use the network bring their outside network of friends
into the group.
 There are two other major problems social networking solutions must overcome.
The first being that it is just too much work to upload your contacts into all the various
social networking applications. Actively participating in more than one or two of these
applications consumes far more free time than the average member has available. The
other major barrier to the productive application of social networking systems is that they
are being developed as standalone systems instead of being incorporated into the
information technologies that businesses are already using to manage business
relationships or relationship-related information. Creating social networking tools that
extend solutions already in use instead of making people use third-party applications is
essential. This last problem applies only to enterprise market social networking solutions.
This is where experts believe the future applications for the social networking market will
be [12].

10 Intelligence Applications of Social Network Analysis

Research in social network analysis is being performed by government agencies

for use in defense programs. The Total Information Awareness program sponsored by the
Defense Department is currently working on a project known as Scalable Social Network
Analysis (SSNA). “SSNA aims to model networks of connections like social interactions,
financial transactions, telephone calls, and organizational memberships” [13]. They are
attempting to model the social networks that terrorists belong to. The purpose of the
SSNA algorithms program is to extend techniques of social network analysis to assist
with distinguishing potential terrorist cells from legitimate groups of people, based on
their patterns of interactions, and to identify when a terrorist group plans to execute an
attack. This is an extremely ambitious project considering the scale of the social networks
that these researchers are attempting to model. In order to be successful SSNA will
require information on the social interactions of the majority of people around the globe.
Since the Defense Department cannot easily distinguish between peaceful citizens and
terrorists, it will be necessary for them to gather data on innocent civilians as well as on
potential terrorists.

The SSNA program is developing techniques based on social network analysis for
modeling the key characteristics of terrorist groups and discriminating these groups from
other types of societal groups. Social network analysis (SNA) techniques have proven
effective in distinguishing key roles played by individuals in organizations and different
types of organizations from each other. For example, most people interact in several
different communities. Within each community people who interact with a given
individual are also likely to interact with each other. According to the Defense
Department very preliminary analytical results based on an analysis of the Al Qaeda
network of September 11th hijackers showed how several social network analysis metrics
changed significantly in the period immediately prior to the attacks. This change could
have indicated that an attack was imminent.

10.1 The Future of SSNA

 Current SNA algorithms are effective at analyzing small numbers of people whose
relationship types are unspecified. SSNA would extend these techniques to allow for the
analysis of much larger numbers of people who have multiple interaction types (i.e.
communication and financial). The program will develop algorithms and data structures
for analyzing and visualizing the social networks linkages, implement these algorithms
and data structures into software modules that provide SNA functionality, and
demonstrate and evaluate these models in appropriate intelligence community systems
and environments. SSNA begins development in fiscal year 2004 and is expected to
conclude in fiscal year 2007. It is generally regarded as one of the most ambitious
projects in social network analysis ever attempted [14].