Course syllabus

— Professor: Lu Zheng （郑路）

— Office phone: 62789503, Cell: 18611457180

— Email: [email protected]

— Office Hours: 2-3pm Weds at R216, Xiongzhixing Hall熊知行楼.

Please sign up on https://calendly.com/zhenglu
— TA：Menglin Liu (刘梦玲), cell：17888830329, email:
[email protected]
Course Description
— Social Network Analysis (SNA) is one of the most exciting
and emerging fields in social sciences and sciences in
recent years. From the very beginning, SNA has been an
interdisciplinary subject, only gaining new momentum in
recent years from cross-disciplinary illuminations from
sociology, economics, political science, psychology, math,
physics and computer science, etc.
Course Description
— This course introduces basic network principles, concepts
and theories,
— covers essential techniques in carrying out network
analysis including research design, data collection,
measurement, and data analysis using UCINET, and
— exposes students to fruitful applications of SNA in a
variety of disciplines.

— In doing so, this course enables students to examine the

empirical world from the unique perspective of network.
Required Text
— Networks, Crowds, and Markets:
Reasoning about a Highly Connected
World by David Easley and Jon
Kleinberg, Cambridge University Press
(2010)

— https://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/klei
nber/networks-book/networks-
book.pdf
Recommended Readings
— 杨松、弗朗西斯卡•凯勒、郑路（著），曹立坤、曾丰又
（译），2019，《社会网络分析：方法与应用》，社会
科学文献出版社。
— 罗家德（著），2020，《社会网分析讲义（第三
版）》，社会科学文献出版社。
— 艾伯特•拉斯洛•巴拉巴西 (著), 沈华伟 (译)，2013，《链
接：商业、科学与生活的新思维》(10周年纪念版)，浙
江人民出版社。
— 尼古拉斯·克里斯塔基、詹姆斯·富勒 (著), 简学 (译), 2017,
《大连接：社会网络是如何形成的以及对人类现实行为
的影响》，北京联合出版公司。
— 马修·杰克逊 (著)，余江(译)，2019，《人类网络：社会
位置决定命运》，中信出版社。
— 尼尔·弗格森 (著), 周逵、颜冰璇 (译)，2020，《广场与高
塔》，中信出版社。
— Borgatti, Stephen, Martin Everett, and Jeffrey C Johnson.
2013. Analyzing Social Networks. SAGE.
— 刘军（编著），2009， 《整体网分析讲义：UCINET软件
实用指南》，格致出版社/上海人民出版社。
Course Requirement
— Students are expected to attend the class on time. Asking
questions and participating discussions are strongly
encouraged.
— Attendance and participation (10 points)
— In-class quizzes (40 points)
— Final project (50 points)
— In total: 100 points
 Class Schedule
— Week 1, Introduction to Social Network Analysis (Reading: D&K
Chapter 1)
— Week 2, Graph Theory and Social Networks (Reading: D&K Chapter 2)
— Week 3, Tie Strength and Structure Holes (Reading: D&K Chapter 3)
— Week 4, Homophily and Affiliation (Reading: D&K Chapter 4)
— Week 5, Positive and Negative Relationships (Reading: D&K Chapter 5)
— Week 6, Information Cascades, Network Effects and Power Laws
(Reading: D&K Chapter 16-18)
— Week 7, --------Quiz 1----------
— Week 8, Basics of SNA data and UCINET
Class Schedule
— Week 9, Network Measures and Centrality
— Week 10, Cohesive Subgroups & Structural Equivalence
— Week 11, Ego Network and Whole Network Analysis
— Week 12, Testing Hypotheses
— Week 13, Group Project Proposal Presentation
— Week 14, --------Quiz 2----------
— Week 15, Group Project Progress Presentation
Guidelines to Final Project
— The final project is a team effort. Each research team
consists of 4 to 5 students, whom are randomly drawn to
form a team. The task is to conduct a social network
study, report the findings in a group presentation, and
write a research paper as a group. The research process
constitutes the following steps.
Guidelines to Final Project
— Step 1: Define the Research Problem
— Each team chooses a proper research topic by consulting with me. This
requirement is to make sure you are on a right track. When coming up the
topic, think about the following questions. Why is it interesting? What has
been done by others on similar topics? Do you have any ideas/hypotheses
to be tested?
— Step 2: Collect Network Data
— You can either design a survey questionnaire to collect data or code
network data from existing sources.
— Step 3: Analyzing Network Data
— Use software to see what your network data look like in graphs. Conduct
some descriptive analysis to characterize the network(s) under
investigation and whenever possible, test some hypotheses. Discuss the
findings.
Guidelines to Final Project
— Step 4: Present Your Research
— Share your research with the class in a group presentation. Tips for a good
presentation include:
-To make the presentation coherent, organize the presentation as a group
(not just several people reporting on their assigned task).
-Use visual aids such as PowerPoint, cartoon, video clips, etc.
-Make it interesting as long as it is relevant to our class. A good
presentation keeps the audience’s attention and provokes new ideas and
questions.
— Step 5: Based on above steps, write a group research paper
Guidelines to Final Project
— Step 6: Write an individual report
— Write an individual report to explain the process by which you’ve organized
your research, the reasoning behind the decisions your group made, and
your contribution to the group as a team member. In addition, you should
include one or two lines evaluating your fellow group members on their
contribution to the project. Please rank each group member on a scale of
Zero (no help at all) to Five (an excellent co-worker). I will use the
information to make sure everyone is accountable for her/his own effort or
lack thereof.
— Final Papers due by 5pm on January 3, 2023
What is a network?
— In the most basic sense, a network is any collection of
objects (“nodes” ) in which some pairs of these objects
are connected by links(“ties” or “edges”).

— Nodes can be actors, such as

persons, groups, or
organizations, neurons,
abstract ideas.
— Ties can take on endless
forms, from physical linkages,
personal relationship, to
other intangible connections.
Networks as an interaction structure among units
— At some broad level, the study of networks can
encompass the study of all kinds of interactions.
— Information transmission.
— Web links.
— Information exchange.
— Trade.
— Credit and financial flows.
— Friendship.
— Trust.
— Spread of epidemics.
— Diffusion of ideas and innovation
Underlying premises of network analysis

— Ties are often more influential in affecting behavior than

the specific attributes of nodes.

— The behavior of a node is influenced not only by the ties

in which it is directly involved, but also by the patterning
of ties in the network structure.
从四个维度来学习社会网络分析
节点
— 中心度：谁是微信群里重要的人？
— 结构洞：什么样的人升迁快？
— 多重网络：后来者的机会在哪里？

连接
— 异质性：聪明的创业者怎么找投资？
— 弱关系：高手怎么跳槽？
— 小世界：世界到底有多大？
从四个维度来学习社会网络分析
网络
— 幂律分布：为什么世界不是平的？
— 网络效率：为什么环路更堵车？
— 网络密度：外地人怎么出人头地？
— 网络韧性：为什么反恐那么难？
— 非正式网络：谁是组织里最有权力的人？
— 多维网络：为什么说美国是金钱政治？
机制
— 网络三度影响力：为什么你同学的姐姐的闺蜜长胖了，你也
会变胖？
— 传染：为什么从众行为不是盲从，是理性？
— 复杂网络：硅谷为什么难以复制？
Networks---Visual Examples

The social network of friendships within a 34-person karate club

 Networks---Visual Examples

The links among Web pages can reveal densely-knit communities

and prominent sites. In this case, the network structure of political
blogs prior to the 2004 U.S. Presidential election reveals two natural
and well-separated clusters.
Networks---Visual Examples

In a network representing international trade, one can look for countries that
occupy powerful positions and derive economic benefits from these positions
Networks---Visual Examples

In this map of Medieval trade routes, physical networks constrain the patterns
of interaction, giving certain participants an intrinsic economic advantage
based on their network position.
 Networks---Visual Examples

When people are influenced by the behaviors their neighbors in the network, the
adoption of a new product or innovation can cascade through the network structure.
Here, e-mail recommendations for a Japanese graphic novel spread in a kind of
informational or social contagion
 Networks---Visual Examples
黑色是传染源或临床
确诊感染者，粉红色
的是暴露在了传染源，
可能被感染，但目前没

有传染性的人，绿色
代表无感染和没有传染
性的人。感染状况是未

知的为灰色的节点。

The spread of an epidemic disease (such as the tuberculosis outbreak shown here) is
another form of cascading behavior in a network. The similarities and contrasts
between biological and social contagion lead to interesting research questions.
The network structure of four models of
infection
Example: Sexual relationships in an American high school over an 18-month period
社会网络与健康——孤独感
Networks---Visual Examples
Networks---Visual Examples
A typology of network ties
— Transaction relations: actors exchange control over physical or symbolic
objects; most economic exchanges fall in this category.
— Communication relations: almost all kinds of social networks can be used
to pass messages between the actors.
— Instrumental relations: actors contact one another to obtain tangible
goods, assistance, or information.
— Sentiment relations: relations that are used to express emotions, such as
affection, frustration, admiration, deference, and hostility.
— Authority/power relations: most of those network relations occur in formal
hierarchical organizations where social actors assume formal roles and
positions; accepting responsibilities, obligations, and privileges; receiving
and sending commands; and reporting or being reported to.
— Kinship and descent relations: relations between family members linked via
biological ties.
Conceptualizing and measuring network
— Distance: the length of the shortest path between two
actors.
— Small world study (Milgram 1967)
— Original question: how many links are needed to get a
folder from one person to another from Nebraska to
Massachusetts?
— Research design:296 Nebraskan were asked to send a folder
to somebody they knew personally. The goal was to get it to
someone they thought would be more likely than them to
have a personal relationship with the Boston businessman.
For each possible length (labeled “number of intermediaries” on the x-axis), the
plot shows the number of successfully completed chains of that length. In total,
64 chains reached the target person, with a median length of six.
The Small-World Phenomenon
— John Guare. Six Degrees of Separation: A Play (1990).
— “I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is
separated by only six other people. Six degrees of
separation between us and everyone else on this planet.“

— Not only do you have paths of friends connecting you to a

large fraction of the world's population, but these paths
are surprisingly short.
Three Degrees of Influence Rule
— We influence and are influenced by people up to three
degrees from us (Connected by Christakis and Fowler
2009).
— How your friends’ friends’ friends
affect everything you feel, think
and do…
— Contagion: what flows across ties
(germs, money, violence, fashions,
organs, happiness, obesity, etc.)
Three Degrees of Influence Rule
— Your colleague's husband's sister
can make you fat or thin, even if
you don't know her.
— Your friends’ friends’ friends has
more impact on your happiness
than $5,000 in your pocket.
— Other example: political views,
word-of-mouth
recommendations, life partner.
“三度影响力”与“六度分隔”的比较
Interpersonal Influence
— Stanley Milgram’s sidewalk experiment
— Planted actors or “stimulus crowds” of different size to stare
up at a window across the street
— Passersby are filmed to record reactions--stop and
stare/glance up
— Crowd of 1: 4% of pedestrians stopped
— Crowd of 15: 40% stopped, 86% glanced up
— Crowd of 5 induced almost the same effect as 15+!
— Cascading effects in social networks: the growth of a
small initial influence into a global movement.
Summary
— Definition of a network

— Premises of network analysis

— Small world phenomenon

— Six degrees of separation

— Three Degrees of Influence