warren sack / film & digital media department / university of california, santa cruz social networks / social software fdm 20c introduction to digital media lecture

last time surveillance

outline for today social networks as science social networks as technology social networks as popular culture social networks as art

social networks as science: field social network analysis is an interdisciplinary social science, but has been of especial concern to sociologists; recently, physicists and mathematicians have made large contributions to understanding networks in general (as graphs) and thus contributed to an understanding of social networks too.

social network as science: definition [Social network analysis] is grounded in the observation that social actors [i.e., people] are interdependent and that the links [i.e., relationships] among them have important consequences for every individual [and for all of the individuals together].... [Relationships] provide individuals with opportunities and, at the same time, potential constraints on their behavior.... Social network analysis involves theorizing, model building and empirical research focused on uncovering the patterning of links among actors. It is concerned also with uncovering the antecedents and consequences of recurrent patterns. (from Linton C. Freeman)

social network as science: history J.L. Moreno (1934) Friendship choices between 4th grade boys (triangles) and girls (circles)

social networks as science: history kinship studies: Radcliffe-Brown, Levi-Strauss, etc. (see Jeff Tobin, faculty.oxy.edu/tobin/anth100/ outlines/05.html)

social networks as science: history (see Jeff Tobin, faculty.oxy.edu/tobin/anth100/ outlines/05.html)

social networks as science: history Stanley Milgram (1967) “The Small World Problem,” Psychology Today Milgram sent 60 letters to various recruits in Wichita, Kansas who were asked to forward the letter to the wife of a divinity student living at a specified location in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The particpants could only pass the letters (by hand) to personal acquaintances who they thought might be able to reach the target - whether directly or via a "friend of a friend". “six-degrees of separation”

social networks as science: history Mark Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties” Sometimes acquaintances are more valuable than friends (e.g., when one is looking for a job).

social networks as science: equivalence B A A and B are “structurally equivalent” because they connect to the same people and thus have equivalent positions in the network.

social networks as science: centrality Diane is central; Jane is not. See

social networks as science: bridges if you’re a boy in this network (a triangle) and you want to meet a girl (a circle), who are you going to call for an introduction?

social networks as science: bridges this guy, right?

social networks as science: social capital if you connect separate networks you have bridging capital if you are central to a network you have bonding capital

social networks as science: bowling alone sociologist robert putnam claims that united states citizens no longer know or trust their neighbors and thus communities have lost their social capital when did we start to lose it? after the second world war what media technology came into wide-spread use after the second world war?

social networks as technology , newsgroups, and weblogs, facebook, friendster, flickr and other forms of “social software” in the design of the arpanet (the forerunner to the internet) was an afterthought!

social networks as technology search engines: e.g., Google ( –Google’s Page Rank algorithm gives more weight to popular webpages. –A webpage is considered popular if many other webpages link to it. compare this to search engines built specially for weblogs; e.g., Cameron Marlow’s

social networks as technology collaborative filtering and/or recommender systems; e.g., amazon.com’s feature: “People who bought this book also bought...”

social networks as popular culture e.g., six degrees of kevin bacon bacon number: definition –kevin bacon has a bacon number of 0 –an actor, A, has a bacon number of 1 if s/he appeared in a movie with kevin bacon –an actor, B, has a bacon number of 2 if s/he appear in a movie with A –etc. try this with the internet movie database: e.g., or, have it done automatically here, at the “oracle of bacon”:

social networks as popular culture social software; e.g., friendster, orkut, tribe, etc. recall the article by danah boyd: what happens to social networks when they are explicitly declared? –“[danah] emphasize[s] how users have repurposed the technology to present their identity and connect in personally meaningful ways while the architect works to define and regulate acceptable models of use.” to understand “artificial” social networks we need to rethink the social scientific concepts of “equivalence,” “centrality,” even “node” and “link.”

social networks as art Ben Discoe’s, Friendster Map

social networks as art Mark Lombardi, Global Networks

social networks as art Official Computer Scene Sexchart

social networks as art Josh On (Futurefarmers), They Rule

social networks as art Jonah Peretti, Nike Sweatshop

social networks as art Warren Sack and Sawad Brooks Warren Sack, Conversation Map

social networks as art Angie Waller, Data Mining the Amazon

social networks as art Thanks to Steve Dietz for these art links. See here for more examples:

visualizing (social) networks See Martin Dodge’s “Cybergeography” website for many examples of how networks can be visualized:

next time media ownership