[Air-L] Social network site nomenclature

[Caroline Haythornthwaite]

As one who tries to make a clear distinction between "social networks" and 
"social networking", let me see if this distinction makes sense to others.

Social networks are created and maintained by ties between people. They are 
studied using social network analysis, a formal set of techniques now being 
more widely used and identified under the label of "network science". There is 
no online or offline separation for social networks -- they exist, emerge and 
are maintained based on ties between people whether these happen via online 
and/or offline means.

Social networking I take to mean a deliberate, active pursuit of ties with other 
people -- from the business sense of social networking as something you do to 
make and keep business contacts, to the friend making in MySpace, Facebook, 
etc. 

Social networking sites (SNSs) are online sites which provide the technical 
infrastructure for social networking. While the term is used, and I'd say 
reserved for online sites, the concept of a social networking site could also 
apply to offline settings as well -- after all, what is a pub for if not a social 
networking site.

And, yes, social networks emerge and are maintained through social 
networking via social network sites. The distinction is that social networks 
emerge in lots of ways, not *just* through the deliberate strategy of social 
networking, nor just through social networking sites.

Comments please as I really do try to make these distinctions clear and bug 
people not to call my work 'social networking'! 

/Caroline


---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 22:25:00 -0400
>From: Kevin Guidry <krguidry at gmail.com>  
>Subject: [Air-L] Social network site nomenclature  
>To: air-l at aoir.org
>
>All,
>
>Much of the available research refers to services such as Facebook and
>MySpace as "social network(ing) sites/services (SNS)."  Let's ignore
>for the moment the differences between those four permutations as I'm
>more interested in learning about why some researchers use "online
>social networks (ONS)."  SNS seems to be much more common,
>particularly in the wake of the late 2007 JCMC special theme issue
>focusing on SNSs.
>
>Given that both terms are still in use, is there some sort of subtle
>cultural or discipline-based divide of which I am unaware?  Or is this
>just an oddity that isn't important or indicative of anything more
>than personal preference?
>
>
>Kevin
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--------------------------------------
Caroline Haythornthwaite
Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820
haythorn at illinois.edu OR haythorn at uiuc.edu