Exercise 10:1 Social networks case study

Social network analysis of our weekly meetings and blogs.

Since we have a fine collection of artefacts from our own learning community in this subject, use the references to guide your directions AND figure 1 on mapping the social network as a set of nodes, follow these steps: [HINT -don't pick too small or too big an extract]

What to do:

Who is following who? Examine the blogs in your POD and work out the map of Followers/Following relationship.

1.Assign each person a letter in the same order as they appear in the dialogue as a, b, c .. etc.

I used the data Ken suggested in his message to the ITC510 Forum (Re: topic 10 sent 9/10/09).

2.For your chosen extract, draw the social network diagram and build the same matrix of 0 and 1's as per figure 1.

3. Descibe any patterns of people's interactions that you discover. ( I am forcing you to think here).

• A, B and D are all following and being followed
• C is being followed but is not following anyone
• A and B have an equal number of interactions (followers = following)
• A and B have more interactions than C and D
• D has more interactions than C
• C has the least interactions
  
  

If you were to repeat this analysis on another set of blogs from another POD, would you find the same patterns?

1. Why or why not? [HINT - changes in context and process may be just some variables to consider]

2. Support you opinion with any of the references provided or with others you find.

It is almost impossible to say if another set of POD blogs would display a similar pattern because the system is subject to the influence of variables which influence ITC510 bloggers' following/follower choices, for example, those involving motivation (reciprocity, past experience, friendship, interest etc).

Complex systems are characterised by their unpredictability: "The interaction with the environment, as well as the learning and self organisation mechanisms makes it unrealistic to regard such systems as structurally stable." Pavard and Dugdale (2006, p.4).

I would expect a larger system, however, to begin to exhibit emergent properties, ie properties that "arise due to the interactions in a system, and are not inherent in the individual components" (Hallinan, 2005). An example of such a property would be self-organisation: "social phenomena, such as social networks and social movements, easily lend themselves to the conceptualization of emergent properties generated by self-organizing process dynamics"(Buchmann, 2001, p.4427).

References:

Buchmann, M. (2001). Emergent properties. In Neil J. Smelser, & Paul B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (pp. 4424-4428). Oxford: Pergamon.

Hallinan, J. (2005). Introduction to complex systems. Retrieved October 26, 2009, from http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~comp4001/

Pavard, B. & Dugdale, J. 2006, An Introduction to Complexity in Social Science, Retrieved October 26, 2009, from http://www.irit.fr/COSI/training/complexity-tutorial/complexity-tutorial.htm