ABSTRACT
Individuals interact in complex social networks in which social ties play a major role. The type, quality, and number of connections formed with others crucially define a person’s opportunities. Weak ties supported by online professional networks increase job opportunities, and political activists have used social media platforms to their advantage. At the same time, these platforms have become the main source for sharing and receiving news for a large part of the population.
Our understanding of social dynamics, therefore, relies crucially on a comprehension of the impact of a network’s topology on individual decision-making. This chapter introduces readers to social network analysis and demonstrates tools that help determine the degree of influence that a member of a social network has on others. It further elaborates tools that study networks as a whole. This chapter helps readers identify the properties of social networks, such as the small-world effect, as well as communities within a network without the need for further contextual knowledge.
Among the concepts discussed are: directed and undirected networks, homogeneous and heterogeneous graphs, bipartite graphs and unipartite projections, centrality measures and centralisations, modularity, degree distributions and preferential attachment, the Matthew effect, Zipf’s law.
