[Air-L] Social network site nomenclature

[Robert Ackland]

I want to comment on the reference to "network science" below.

I guess there will be quite a few people on Air-L who like me, are also 
on the SOCNET list run by the International Network for Social Network 
Analysis (INSNA).

I study and teach about online social and organisational networks and a 
major influence on my work is social network analysis (SNA).  SNA is not 
a sub-field of network science.  Network science is primarily identified 
with applied physics, while SNA comes out of sociology.  There has been 
some cross-over between network science and SNA and interestingly, there 
has been significant movement of ideas from SNA to network science.  For 
example, in relation to centrality in networks - see "Going the Wrong 
Way on a One-Way Street: Centrality in Physics and Biology" by Linton 
Freeman, http://www.cmu.edu/joss/content/articles/volume9/Freeman/.  As 
pointed out by Freeman, often the direction of ideas goes the other way: 
from natural science to social science.

I feel it is important to recognise the disciplinary differences in how 
networks are analysed - different theoretical models, different 
analytical approaches (although with useful cross-over).  I guess I'm 
concerned to see "network science" used as an umbrella term as it really 
does refer a particular disciplinary perspective.  I have similar 
reservations about "web science".

Best regards,
Rob


Caroline Haythornthwaite wrote:
> 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.
 > --------------------------------------
 > 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

-------------------------------------
Dr Robert Ackland
Fellow and Masters Coordinator, Australian Demographic and Social 
Research Institute, The Australian National University

e-mail:   robert.ackland at anu.edu.au
homepage: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/people/robert.php
project:  http://voson.anu.edu.au
teaching: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/study/ssi.php
-------------------------------------