#TTMethods: Social Network Analysis

Researching think-tanks with social network analysis

Jordan Soukias Tchilingirian

1. An introduction to social network analysis • the basics• SNA and policy research

2. My application• What type of network study was this• How did I produce data• Strengths and weaknesses

Overview

Social Network Analysis

The basics

1. It is not the study of social media or

networking websites (though it is closely related to this!)

2. It is not a new method – roots in early 20th century soc sci, advances since the 1980s

3. It is not ‘data’

SNA is a distinct approach in the social sciences a relational approach

What is SNA?

‘Actors’ • Can be almost anything (people, animals,

organisations, families, computers, websites and so on)• Represented as ‘nodes’ or ‘vertices’ on graphs

Relations• Advice, likes, friendships, kinship ties, commerce,

sleeps with, dislikes, supports – any type of relationship you can think of!

• Represented as ‘edges’ or the lines/arrows on a graph

What is studied

Friends and family

SNA summer school

Department

Whole networks• Predefined sample of boundary e.g. all think-

tanks in Brazil, all staff of one organisation, all villages in a certain district and so on

Ego networks• Relations from the perspective of individuals • Sampling follows a similar logic to ‘normal’

science• Personal networks and social capital studies

Different types of networks

Where we do not know the actual relations between actors and infer from co-attendance

Network data: 2 mode networks

Where we know the relations between actorsYou can make 1 mode networks from two mode networks

Network data: 1 mode networks

Traditional• Positional analysis• Centrality• Network cohesion• Subgroups• Statistical analysis

NewDynamic and longitudinalBig data and social media

Analysis

• Interviews/questionnaires• Observations/ethnography • Secondary data e.g. diaries/biography,

documents, repositories

Data sources

 • realist approaches define the boundary using the lived experience

of participants.

• nominalist approaches place an a priori boundary on the network which is theoretically useful

• positional approaches consider the membership of actors to certain groups of institutions.

• relational approaches are similar to snowball sampling

• event based approaches require the researcher to set a specific time (and possibly geographic) limit to the inclusion of actors.

Boundaries

Name Generators• the affective approach identifies relationships based

on a certain sentiment such as intimacy or personal importance to the ego

• the normative or role based approach identifies all ties connected to an ego through a particular culturally defined role, such as friend, kin, manager and so on

• the exchange approach focuses on the flow of resources (be they material, informational etc.)

• the interactive approach is based on the ego’s contact with alters within a specified time period.

Interview questions 1

Name interpreters • Questions about attributes

Questions about relations• Who knows who?

Also ‘social capital’ style questions

These are usually associated with ego/personal network designs

Interview questions 2

UCINet https://sites.google.com/site/ucinetsoftware/home (free for 30 days – well worth buying!)

Gephi https://gephi.github.io/ (free)

Pajek http://vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/pub/networks/Pajek/ (free)

NodeXL https://nodexl.codeplex.com/downloads/get/806203 (free, plugs in to Excel)

Doing the analysis

E-Net https://sites.google.com/site/enetsoftware1/(free, for personal/ego network studies)

Ego Net http://sourceforge.net/projects/egonet/ (free, CATI tool for ego and whole network studies)

Also R and Python…..AND LOTS MORE!

Other helpful tools

Borgatti, S. P., Everett, M., & Johnson, J. C. (2013). Analyzing social networks. London: SAGE,.

Carrington, P. J., & Scott, J. (2011). The SAGE handbook of social network analysis. London: SAGE,.

Crossley, N., Bellotti, E., Edwards, G., Everett, M. G., Koskinen, J., & Tranmer, M. (2015). Social Network Analysis for Ego-Nets. S.l.: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Kadushin, C. (2012). Understanding Social Networks: Theories, Concepts, and Findings. New York: OUP USA.

Knoke, D., & Yang, S. (2008). Social Network Analysis (2nd ed). Los Angeles ; London: Sage.

Prell, C. (2012). Social Network Analysis: History, Theory and Methodology. London: Sage.

Scott, J. (2012). Social Network Analysis (Third Edition edition). Los Angeles: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Starting out

James Cook’s YouTube site (follows his undergraduate class) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUNsmFTO5nwm4VJQBaO74MF1A8KZfAOi9

Hanneman, R. A., & Riddle, M. (2005). Introduction to social network methods. Riverside, CA: University of California, Riverside. Retrieved from http://faculty.ucr.edu/~hanneman/

INSNA email group – ask the world experts (and not so expert) about all things network related

Online help

How I used social network analysis

My PhD…. British think-tanks and the production of policy

knowledge A social network analysis of policy intellectuals

The ‘decline’ of the public authoritative intellectual (Furedi, 2006) and the marginalisation of academics in public life and power (Halsey, 1992; Griffiths, 2009)…or the ‘transformation’ and the rise of new modes of public intellectualism (Baert, 2012; Bauman, 1989)

A case study of ‘knowledge brokers’ (Meyer, 2010; Osborne, 2004)• the transformation of expertise (Beck, 1992; Collins and

Evans, 2002)• the move to Mode 2 (social) science (Gibbons et al 1994;

Nowotny et al 2003)• corporate interests in policy making and expressions of the

elite power (Burris, 2008)• The journeys of evidence into policy (Smith, 2013)

Research interests: The rise of think-tanks and….

Think-tanks located between several

fields/professions

Medvetz (2012, p37)

My Approach

How do think-tank researchers create

knowledge?Sub question Chapter ApproachHow do organisational/ideological differences between think-tanks relate to the way think-tank research is conducted?

Chapter 4 Statistical analysis - Quadratic Assignment Procedure

What types of knowledge are valued by the think-tank community?

Chapter 5 Centrality measures and descriptive statistics

How do think-tank intellectuals discover knowledge?

Chapter 6 Qualitative analysis – focus on hidden networks and processes

How do think-tank intellectuals enrol different sources of knowledge into their intellectual interventions? 

Chapter 7 Qualitative analysis – focus on the ‘politics’ of policy knowledge creation

…the networks which make an intellectual’s work ‘public’ and the controversies they are enrolled into (Eyal, 2010; 2013)

Positioning theory – an interest in intellectual teams and looser networks - both friendly and hostile - that give life to a debate (Baert, 2011, 2012)

Both focus on ‘products’ – the things intellectuals produce e.g. books, speeches, papers, lectures (also blogs, art, music….even tweets!) – has an ANT-ish flavour

Emergent networks: relationships which tend to be less formally structures and visible and which by their nature are interstitial as they draw disparate actors and institutions together (Kadushin, 1976, p. 770)

A sociology of intellectual interventions…

“An intellectual product locates the author or speaker within the intellectual field or within a broader socio-political or artistic arena whilst also situating other intellectuals, possibly depicting them as allies in a similar venture, predecessors of a similar orientation or alternatively as intellectual opponents”

Baert (2012, p312)

‘Interventions’

1. Inhabits several intersecting social worlds and satisfy

the informational requirements of each2. Plastic enough to adapt to meet the specific

needs/standards of the communities they cross3. But…can maintain a common identity across sites. 4. Have different meanings in different social worlds but

their structure is common enough to more than one world to make them recognisable

5. Key to developing and maintaining coherence across intersecting social worlds

(Star and Griesemer , 1989)

Publication = Boundary Object

An example of an intervention…and

the skeleton of a network

Funder

Traces of intersecting

social worldsAcademics

Civil Servants

Other research institutes

Authors

Colleagues

Business

Quantitative element: Think-tanks that were engaged in contesting and producing knowledge for British social policy. This excluded organisations that:• specialised in environment, defence, international development,

macroeconomics• had a regional focus or an interest in a specific country within the United

Kingdom rather than national focus (e.g. North West or Wales only)• specifically defined themselves as a pressure group rather than a think-

tank or policy research institute• were not established as an organisation in 2005 or had ceased to operate

between 2005-2012• did not write specific policy reports, as opposed to other interventions

such as blogs. This did not mean that organisations with more essay like policy papers were excluded.

• This did not mean the think-tank could not produce policy reports on specific regions or for any of the devolved parliaments.

Boundary and sampling 1

Qualitative element - similar to quantitative• Approached senior and junior research staff

(or whoever holds these functions)• Aimed to have at least two interviewees from

one organisation (if the organisation is big enough)

Boundary and sampling 2

Mixed method SNA• Quantitative analysis of 1 and 2 mode networks• Qualitative analysis of personal networks

Ethics

Contribution?

Overview

Re analyse data to focus on• Network dynamics and longitudinal change• Collapsing authorship and advice networks – will

we find ‘super’ nodes?

Finer coding of quant to consider research themesWiden the sample to capture post 2005 think-tanks

Focus on personal networks from a quantitative and qualitative perspective

Future plans