The Science of Social Media: Social Network Analysis On Facebook

Bernie Hogan (@blurky)Research Fellow

Oxford Internet Institute

Localsocialsummit10.11.11

Source: http://station.woj.com/2011/07/unfacebook-world.html

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Why Haven’t Networks Caught on?

Or have they?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevewilhelm/5406776138/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Red: Professional / OII

Orange: Professional

Yellow: Undergraduate

Violet: Current College

Purple: Family

Teal: High School

Navy: Oxford Social

Cyan: High School 2

Forest: Internship

Green: Grad School

NameGenWeb

The Real Answer

• People don’t know what to do with a network.

• People don’t know how to read a network

...and so - we let Facebook read and do for us.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/briansolis/2696198607/

Having two identities for yourself is an example of a

lack of integrity

Hometown

Family

Sports

Co-workers

Neighbors

Modern Life Facebook

Friends

Friends of Friends

Everyone

“Bolivar”

Anonymous Friends

Hobby group

Oxford Friends

Ex-students

Foreign friends

The Lowest Common Denominator in Action

October 2010 October 2011

Google and Facebook would have you believe that you’re a mirror, but we’re

actually more like diamonds...Look from a different angle, and you see

something completely different.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eogez/3289851965/

Thank YouBernie Hogan

Research Fellow, OIIhttp://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/hogan

Twitter: @blurkybernie.hogan@oii.ox.ac.uk

Hogan, Bernie. 2010. “The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online.” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 30(6): 377-386.

Hogan, Bernie. 2010. “Visualizing and Interpreting Facebook Networks.” In Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL, eds. D Hansen, Marc A Smith, and Ben Shneiderman. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann, p. 165-180.

Brooks, Brandon, Howard T. Welser, Bernie Hogan & Scott titsworth. 2011. “Socioeconomic Status Updates: Family SES and emergent social capital in college student Facebook networks.” Information, Communication & Society (OnlineFirst): 1-21.

Leveraging Facebook Networks

• Queries:

• Number of friends.

• Most mutual friends.

• Analysis:

• Number of groups

• Links:

• Friends of friends

When does it matter?

• Aral and Walker (2010) - Most return on recommends: personalized messages, best return - spam your friends.

• Burke, Kraut and Marlow (2010) - Active participation garners social capital.

• Steinfeld, Ellison and Lampe (2008) - Facebook users accrue social capital over time, and more than non users.