Syllabus
SOCIAL NETWORKS: CONCEPTS, TECHNIQUES,
AND APLICATIONS
Sociology
508-75
Professor Allen Whitt Spring 2000
Office: Lutz (AB) 129 Class:
Davidson 208A
Office
Hours: Wed. 5:00-5:30 Hour: Wed.
5:30-8:15 p.m.
E-mail:
whitt@louisville.edu
Web Page: http://www.louisville.edu/~jawhit01
An
introduction to network concepts, analysis, and application. Emphasis is on
mastery and use of general concepts, techniques, and the use of UCINET and
related software packages. The broad usefulness of network analysis is
illustrated by examples of personal-acquaintance networks and cliques,
connections among urban organizations, patterns of communication and
information flows, transmission of disease, kinship ties, trade and economic
webs among countries, and influence and authority relationships.
Overview
Some of the
most innovative and useful research and evaluation techniques today in both
Europe and the U.S. involve analysis of personal and organizational networks.
Individuals, groups, and organizations are tied together by interaction
patterns, common members, communication exchanges, and resource flows. Analysis
of these complex patterns requires specialized research methods and
technologies. The software package UCINET gives us a powerful way of doing
sophisticated network analysis, allowing precise measurements of network
characteristics. We also have available programs (KrackPlot, Pajek) that map
networks for visual display and analysis. Network analytical techniques treat
data as relational in character, and thus the methods can examine and
explain phenomena that that either cannot be handled at all, or poorly, by
conventional means of data analysis such as correlation and regression. Thus the
approach can add unique ways of understanding a great variety of issues. For example, we may examine the role that
personal and professional networks play in job searches, analyze power
structures in communities and urban areas, determine how networks of friends
are linked into "cliques," study how medical knowledge diffuses
through webs of doctors, investigate international trade patterns, and much
more. As but one recent and intriguing example, the FBI is now using network
techniques to study criminal conspiracies.
·
overview
of the use of network analysis in recent research literature
·
applications
of network analysis to practical problems and issues
·
theory
and measurement of network concepts such as connectedness, density, centralization,
paths and walks, reach, transitivity, direction, distance, blocks, flows, etc.
·
introduction
to UCINET capabilities
·
visual
plotting and analysis of networks using KrackPlot and Pajek
·
centrality
analysis
·
clique
analysis
·
structural
equivalence and positional analysis
·
analysis
of data on ties among more than 150 organizations and nearly 4000 individuals
in Louisville
It is expected that students have at least
some familiarity with a word processing program and computers. Completion of the course will permit students
to use network theories and tools in the practical understanding and study of a
wide range of social policy issues. It
should be kept in mind that the field of network analysis is vast, complex, and
rapidly growing. This course is intended
to serve as a GENERAL introduction to social network analysis, not a
comprehensive, in-depth coverage of all aspects of the subject.
For graduate students: In addition to the other requirements, graduate students will complete an original network analysis research project using relational data. The topic will be decided in consultation with the instructor.
The following two publications are required for the course. They are in Gray’s Bookstore.
1. SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS,
Stanley Wasserman and Katherine Faust, Cambridge University Press, 1994.
2. The UCINET software
program. You will each have your own
student version of this network analysis program to run on the (IBM) computer
of your choice.
3. A CLASSPAK of readings
(contains all reading assignments outside of Wasserman and Faust).
Requirements and Grading
You
will need to have at least some knowledge of how to use a personal
computer. The UCINET program is fairly
easy to use, but will require that you can do simple keyboard operations,
create, save, and print files, and perhaps use a few features of DOS.
Prerequisites: Junior, Senior, or
Graduate standing or consent of instructor.
Undergraduate students: Your grade for the seminar will be based upon:
1. Weekly Assignments (20
percent)
2. Class Participation (20
percent)
3. Exams (a total of four,
15 percent each = 60 percent)
Graduate students: Your grade for the seminar will be based upon:
1. Weekly Assignments (10
percent)
2. Class Participation (10
percent)
3. Exams (a total of four,
10 percent each = 40 percent)
4. Graduate Research Project
(40 percent)
Weekly
Assignments Generally, you will be assigned exercises to
be due the next class meeting. You will
hand in your Weekly Assignments at the start of each class period. The
assignments will ask you to answer theoretical questions, address points raised
in the readings or in class, create data files, process data using UCINET, and
interpret the results. I will grade the
assignments and return them to you within a week or less. It is important to
hand in all assignments on time, since the content of the class builds on
itself. Do not fall behind.
Class
Participation I will assign a class participation grade for
the semester based on my judgement of how actively and thoughtfully you took
part. This grade will be based upon such
things as:
1. completing the readings
on time and generally being prepared for each class
2. demonstrating involvement
with and understanding of the material
3. speaking up in class,
discussing issues
4. asking questions and
responding to questions
5. leading discussions, when
requested
Exams.
There will four Exams on the dates indicated. Exams will cover the readings, as well as
network theory, applications, and aspects of the operation of UCINET.
Graduate
Research Project. Graduate students will be required to analyze
and write a report on a large dataset that I will distribute near the end of
the semester. You will be expected to
use all (or nearly all) of the analytical techniques we will cover in the
semester. This includes applying various
techniques implemented in UCINET, as well as selective use of SPSS (if
appropriate). Graphical analysis may
involve the use of UCINET, Pajek, or Krackplot.
The written portion of the project will require you to make sense of and
explain the data and the analysis. I
will have more to say about the project in class. It will be due on the last day of the
Final Exam Period.
For undergraduate students, the grading scale will be:
A
90-100
B 80-89
C 70-79
D 60-69
F < 60
For graduate students, the grading scale will be:
A+
97-100
A 94-96
A- 90-93
B+ 87-89
B 84-86
B- 80-83
C+ 77-79
C 74-76
C- 70-73
D+ 67-69
D 64-66
D- 60-63
F < 60
V. Topics and Assignments
The below assignments are to be completed
BEFORE the class meeting for which they are listed.
Week I Introduction to the Class; The Nature
and Uses of Relational Data
1/12 Read:
Syllabus
Week II Examples of Network Theory and Analysis;
Introduction to UCINET
1/19 Read:
1.
“The
ties that lead to prosperity,” Karen Pennar, Business Week, Dec.
15, 1997, 153-155.
2.
“Bowling
alone: America’s declining social capital,” Robert D. Putnam, Journal of
Democracy 6(1995): 65-78.
3.
“Social
network analysis: An aid in conspiracy investigations,” Roger H. Davis, FBI
Law Enforcement Bulletin, December 1981.
4.
“The
strength of weak ties,” Mark Granovetter, American Journal of Sociology,
78(1973): 1361-1380.
5.
UCINET
Manual, pp.
Week III Social
Network Analysis and Data; Working with
UCINET
1/26 Read:
1.
W
& F pp. 1-66
2.
“Computer
networks as social networks,” Barry Wellman, et. al., Annual Review
of Sociology 22(1996): 213-38.
3.
“Delineating
personal support networks,” Mart G.M. van der Poel, Social Networks, 15(1993):
49-70.
4.
UCINET
Manual, pp.
Week
IV Notation, Graphs, and Matrices
2/2 Read:
EXAM I
Week
V Structure and Location in
Graphs; Review of
Exam I
2/9 Read:
W & F pp. 169-248
Week
VI Structure and Location in
Graphs; UCINET
Exercises
2/16 Read:
Week
VII Applications
of Network Analysis
2/23 Read:
1.
“Gender
and networks in a local voluntary-sector elite,” Gwen Moore and J. Allen Whitt,
unpublished paper, 1997.
2.
“Network
structure and delinquent attitudes within a juvenile gang,” Stephen W. Baron
and David B. Tindall, Social Networks 15(1993): 255-273.
3.
“Sources
of social structure in a start-up organization: work networks, work activities,
and job status,” Leo F. Brajkovich, Social Networks 16(1994): 191-212.
EXAM II
Week
VIII UCINET Exercises
3/1
Week
IX UCINET Exercises
3/8
Week
X UCINET Exercises
3/22
EXAM III
Week XI Network
Applications
3/29 Read:
1.
“Structure
and dynamics of the global economy: network analysis of international trade
1965-1980,” David A. Smith and Douglas R. White, Social Forces June,
1992, 70(4): 857-893.
2.
“Banks
and corporate lending an analysis of the impact of the internal structure of
the capitalist class on the lending behavior of banks,” Richard E. Ratcliff,
American Sociological Review 45 (1980): 553-570.
3.
“Street-level
drug markets: network structure and HIV risk,” Richard Curtis, et. al., Social
Networks 17(1995): 229-249.
4.
“Friendship
among the French financial elite,” Charles Kadushin, American Sociological
Review 60(1995): 202-221.
Week XII Network
Applications (continued)
4/5 Read:
1.
“Networks
or networking? The importance of power, position, and values in local economic
policy networks in Britain and France,” Peter John and Alistair Cole, paper
delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Assn., 1997.
2.
“Financial
interest groups and interlocking directorates,” Beth Mintz and Michael
Schwartz, Social Science History 7(1983): 183-204.”
3.
“Cohesion,
equivalence, and similarity of behavior: a theoretical and empirical
assessment,” Mark S. Mizruchi, Social Networks 15(1993): 275-307.
4.
ASSIGNMENT
OF GRADAUTE PROJECTS
Week XIII Network Applications (continued)
4/12 Read:
“Cohesion,
equivalence, and similarity of behavior: a theoretical and empirical
assessment,” Mark S. Mizruchi, Social Networks 15(1993): 275-307.
Week XIV Exam IV
4/19
Graduate
students: Completed Research Projects are due in the Sociology Office by 5:00
p.m., Tuesday, May 2, 2000.