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At 01:08 PM 9/25/2001 -0500, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font face="arial" size=2>I'm
trying to learn more about network analysis statistical programs. I want
to know which are used most often, which are Window-oriented, limitations
to various programs, etc.</blockquote><br>
There is a general, older page on social network analysis software:
<a href="http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/project/INSNA/soft_inf.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/project/INSNA/soft_inf.html</a>
(part of the International Network for Social Network Analysis- http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/project/INSNA/ ). While I've known people who used such software (eg., Negopy), I am not particularly knowledgeable. Further the appropriateness, cost, and robustness of any particular software can vary between different tasks.<br><br>
Barry Wellman's group and network would be knowledgeable (and he has a fine publications page http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/publications/index.html ). <br><br>
Nine theoretical wrinkles of your mathematical situation: 1. defining and locating 'actors/actants/nodes' for your data; 2. relating 'mere' connectedness and centrality within networks to power over and in a network; 3. considering networks in networks (from my perspective any 'node' is itself a network); 4. relating links at the level of parts or at the level of super-sets to those which do not occur at the level of study, and vice versa; 5. clarifying the way the 'collection' of the data, particularly where it is 'easy' foregrounds certain questions over others; 6. Deciding whether to distinguish networks based on content, media, frequency, etc. or to combine them as a unitary network; 7. Determining or accounting for what is missing from the network (temporary autonomous situations/zones, hidden links, sensitive links, etc.); 8. Conversely, setting a value for what might be in or constituting a link in a network based on play, mistake, or other indeterminancies (other than eliminating it as noise); and importantly, 9. defining/deconstructing the boundary or level of the study, although boundary conditions can simply be asserted, often by someone evincing a perspective from 'outside' the network, even if they also 'belong' to it - the notion of 'deconstruction' is very much meant here. How one answers those questions will have a great impact on where and how the statistics are collected, and on what the statistics produce, what they reveal, and how they are interpreted. <br><br>
Good luck! Willard<br><br>
<br>
Willard Uncapher, Ph.D. / Ctr. for Technocultural Studies / UC, Davis / willard@well.com<br>
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