[Air-L] "social networks" preceded "network community"

[Barry Wellman]

Jose wrote in the last digest:
"I think that this comparison is similar to that of VCs and 'Networked
Communities', a term that has been there long before 'social networks'."

Sorry, Jose, but I think you're wrong.

I.

The explicit use of the term social network goes back to the 1950s, with
J.A.  Barnes, the Cambridge anthropologist. Wikipedia has a handy
historical section on this, and for more detail, see

Linton Freeman, The Development of Social Network Analysis: A Study in the
Sociology of Science. Vancouver: Empirical Press, 2004.

(I have a shorter article, as the first chapter of Wellman & Berkowitz,
_Social Structures_).

What's happening is that the social software mavens have been taking over
"social network" as their own. There's been a lot of fuss on Wikipedia
differentiating between the "social network" and the "social network
service" article.

II.

I think I invented the term "networked comunities". Certainly I
started using it much later -- in the 1970s. Dredging my vitae, it was
probably used early on in:

Barry Wellman, "The Network Nature of Future Communities." Society for the
Study of Social Problems, Aug., 1972. New York.(if you want to consider
conference papers)

and in print:

Paul Craven and Barry Wellman, "The Network City". Sociological Inquiry 43
(Winter, 1973): 57-88.

Barry Wellman, "The Form and Function of Future Communities." Pp. 301-313
in Futures for Central Canada, edited by Larry S. Bourne, et al. Toronto:
Univ. of Toronto Press, 1974.

Barry Wellman, "Community Transformations: Present and Future." Pp. 213-26
in Participatory Democracy in Action, edited by Dan Chekki. Sahibabad,
India: Vikas, 1979.

Barry Wellman, "The Community Question: The Intimate Networks of East
Yorkers." American Journal of Sociology 84 (March, 1979): 1201-31.

Barry Wellman and Barry Leighton, "Networks, Neighborhoods and
Communities," Urban Affairs Quarterly 14 (March, 1979):363-90.

Barry Wellman, Peter Carrington and Alan Hall "Networks as Personal
Communities." Pp. 130-84 in Social Structures: A Network Approach, edited
by Barry Wellman and S.D. Berkowitz. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988.

You could look it up as Casey used to say, as my vitae is online.
Alas, these papers were written before word processing, so I don't have a
handy search mechanism available.

And I'd rather write new stuff that search old.

 Barry Wellman
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