SOCY2166/SOCY6066 Social Science of the Internet Winter 2024 Workshop 2 QuestionsR

Java Python SOCY2166/SOCY6066 Social Science of the Internet (ANU, Winter 2024)

Workshop 2 Questions

Question 1: Strong and weak ties

Think about your own social network:

· What do you receive from your “strong ties” (people with whom you have a strong/intense connection and/or you have many friends in common)?

· What do you receive from your “weak ties” (people who you may only see occasionally and/or do not have many or any friends in common)?

Question 2: Calculating basic SNA metrics

Calculated the following basic SNA metrics for the network below: degree centrality, network size, network density, network inclusiveness.

Question 3: Why are social ties created?

The Topic 2 lecture slides (p. 20) shows a friendship triangle extracted from the school friendship network. What social forces could have led to the formation of th SOCY2166/SOCY6066 Social Science of the Internet Winter 2024 Workshop 2 QuestionsR is triangle? In particular, using the concepts of purely-structural and actor-relation effects, what are possible reasons that C nominated J as a friend?

Question 4: Popular people in the school friendship network

In the school friendship network we see there are few students who receive a lot of friendship nominations. What network effect might explain this?

Question 5: Why do we observe assortativity (homogenous clusters)?

Assume we data on friendship connections between people and whether they smoke or not (represented by node colour: black=smoker, white=non-smoker). What social force(s) could potentially explain the following triad:

Question 6: Calculating assortativity and homophily

Using the simulated friendship network data from the Lecture 2 slides (p. 48), assess the differences between white and black students in terms of their assortativity and homophily