Social Network Analysis

'One of the most potent ideas in the social sciences is the notion that individuals are embedded in thick webs of social relations and interactions’ (Borgatti et al. 2009, pp.892). Social network analysis helps us understand individuals’ contact with the larger social world. It focuses on relationships between social entities, and analyses patterns of social interaction and their influence on individual behaviour. For instance, social network analysis is used to study:

• The role of social capital in getting better jobs.
• The spread of infectious diseases, ideas, and fake news
• Criminal collaboration in terrorist and organised crime groups.

It also helps us understand the impact of personal networks on individual behaviour, for example, whether adolescents with many smokers among their friends are more likely to start smoking.

This course will introduce you to various concepts, methods and applications of social network analysis drawn from the social sciences. You will begin with an introduction to graph theory and the fundamentals of social network analysis, including data collection and visualisation. You will then consider descriptive network-level and individual-level statistics and their applications in social science research. Finally, you will discuss methods for testing hypotheses about social network structure and introduce models for social networks. The emphasis will be on applying social network analysis theories and methods to real-world data, and on understanding and interpreting results, rather than on the underlying mathematics. You will also receive training to use software to investigate social networks.