Representing social networks

The Technology Review published by the MIT (since 1899) on the issue of march/april 2008 is addressing the questions of representation of social networks. As Erica Naone states in her article “ The idea of a social graph – a representation of a person’s network of friends, family, and acquaintances – gaines currency last year as the popularity of online social networks grew: Facebook, for example, claims to have more than 64 million active users, with more 250,000 signing up each day”. Some of the examples illustrated in this article are: the blogosphere from Matthew Hurst’s visualizations of relations between blogs and referrals in blogs; comment flow realized by Dietmar Offenhuber by the MIT Media Lab representing relations between individuals in MySpace; or the so called Twitter social network which is the result of “shared messages, and brief updates on microblogging” where received and sent information can illustrate what is shared and who is sharing it.

>> Those representations of networks are not placed based but as urban thinkers and urban sociologists we see a lot of potential in analyzing how social interactions take place or not in specific spaces. And if the networks are placed-based see what are the relationships between the physical place and the type of relations someone can have with someone else. With this type of information we could eventually better understand the social and spatial context of cities, and propose new links or networks that bring together social actors and physical places.

>> Check our previous posts on social networks.

Social Network Conference

4th UK Social Networks Conference Friday 18th - Sunday 20th July 2008 University of Greenwich, London

The UK Social Network Conference offers an interdisciplinary venue for social and behavioral scientists, sociologists, educationalists, political scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists, practitioners and others to present their work in the area of social networks. The primary objective of the Conference is to facilitate interactions between the many different disciplines interested in network analysis. The Conference provides a unique opportunity for the dissemination and debate of recent advances in theoretical and experimental network research.

Keynote Speakers:
Ron Burt (University of Chicago)
Martin Everett (University of East London)
Tom Snijders (University of Oxford, University of Groningen)

Call for Papers:

We invite submissions of extended abstracts on theories, methods, or applications of social network analysis. Submission of full papers is not required. Extended abstracts should be of no more than three pages and clearly indicate either the research purpose, methodology, and findings, or the discussion area and implications for the field.

Topics include, but are not limited to:
Policy, political and governance networks Business and organisational networks Knowledge, innovation and communication networks Interlocking directors and elite networks Economic and entrepreneurial networks Citations and scientific networks Social capital, brokerage and structural holes Models of network analysis Theory of relational sociology Cross-sectional and longitudinal network datasets Computational models and agent-based simulations of networks Information diffusion and innovation through social networks Online communities and social networking Methods for interrupting clandestine and terrorist networks Epidemiological networks Professional practice in network analysis

Web site of the conference:

http://www.gre.ac.uk/schools/business/conferences-events/sna_conference

France pavillonnaire

Cela faisait longtemps que le thème n'avait pas été abordé dans nos posts plus anciens: celui des pavillons.

Le dernier numéro de Vacarme porte sur : 'la france pavillonnaire' et explique de manière plurielle les questions posées par ce type d'habitat très en vogue dans les franges urbaines des villes françaises - et les politiques actuelles.
>> http://www.vacarme.org/rubrique288.html

On professions ... by academics

Last week we organized a small conference for the team PRO of the Centre Maurice Halbwachs. The idea was to bring researchers and PhD candidates around the same table for two days to discuss and present their questions and/or PhD thesis.

From professional identity to social or professional networks or political institutions, many topics were covered. Six from the thirteen presentations were done by PhD candidates.

>> to see the full program of “les journées de Foljuif”

Thanks to Cécile Michaud and André Grelon with who I worked on the organization of this 'social' event.