A new article by Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston posted on arXiv.org explores the international ownership networks of corporations.  The paper investigates network topology and lists core economic actors.

The bow-tie structure of international corporate control networks

From the authors:

The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic “super-entity” that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers.

Read the article in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Citation by Citation, New Maps Chart Hot Research and Scholarship’s Hidden Terrain

On a related note: check out VOSviewer, one existing software for analysis & visualization of bibliometric networks. As of last week, the new version 1.4 is out, offering bug fixes and better support for Pajek files.

This issue of Journal of Communication features a new article by USC Annenberg PhD graduate Seungyoon Lee, currently assistant professor at Purdue University,  and USC professor Peter Monge, PI of the Annenberg Networks Network. The article studies co-evolution of communication networks in ICT4D projects and is interesting both theoretically and methodologically.

Read the abstract below – or go to the full JoC article.

A color version of the paper is also available here.

From the authors:

This research examines the evolutionary patterns and determinants of multiplex organizational communication networks. Based on the data between 1997 and 2005 collected from the records of development projects in the field of Information and Communication Technology for Development, the study demonstrates that dynamics in one network are significant drivers of tie formation in the other network at both dyadic and triadic levels. In particular, results show that the effects of common third-party ties and structural embeddedness exist across multiplex networks. Further, the study suggests that resource similarity of organizational dyads, resource width, and organizational centrality have positive effects on the propensity for multiplex ties. These results have implications for organizations’ communication networking strategies in a wide variety of organizational communities.

A new article by ANN members Cindy Shen and Peter Monge looks into the dynamics of collaboration in an online software community. Read the full text in the June 2011 edition of First Monday.  Read a news article about the research posted on the University of Texas at Dallas News Center Web site. From the authors:

“By examining “who connects with whom” in an online community using social network analysis, this study tests the social drivers that shape the collaboration dynamics among a group of participants from SourceForge, the largest open source community on the Web. The formation of the online social network was explored by testing two distinct network attachment logics: strategic selection and homophily. Both logics received some support. Taken together, the results are suggestive of a “performance-based clustering” phenomenon within the OSS online community in which most collaborations involve accomplished developers, and novice developers tend to partner with less accomplished and less experienced peers.“

Networks of the Brain by Olaf Sporns was published in Nov 2010 by the MIT Press.  It explores the structure and dynamics of neural networks and the links between the brain’s network architecture and cognition.

From the MIT Press book description:

“Modern network approaches are beginning to reveal fundamental principles of brain architecture and function, and in Networks of the Brain, Olaf Sporns describes how the integrative nature of brain function can be illuminated from a complex network perspective. Highlighting the many emerging points of contact between neuroscience and network science, the book serves to introduce network theory to neuroscientists and neuroscience to those working on theoretical network models.

Brain networks span the microscale of individual cells and synapses and the macroscale of cognitive systems and embodied cognition. Sporns emphasizes how networks connect levels of organization in the brain and how they link structure to function. In order to keep the book accessible and focused on the relevance to neuroscience of network approaches, he offers an informal and non-mathematical treatment of the subject. After describing the basic concepts of network theory and the fundamentals of brain connectivity, Sporns discusses how network approaches can reveal principles of brain architecture. He describes new links between network anatomy and function and investigates how networks shape complex brain dynamics and enable adaptive neural computation. The book documents the rapid pace of discovery and innovation while tracing the historical roots of the field.”

From the authors:

Traditional approaches to community regeneration which define communities in solely geographic terms have severe limitations. They often failed to deliver on key social capital improvements such as improving trust between residents or fostering a greater sense of belonging.
In this report we argue for a new approach to community regeneration, based on an understanding of the importance of social networks, such an approach has the potential to bring about significant improvements in efforts to combat isolation and to support the development of resilient and empowered communities

(For best viewing select More: Fullscreen)

Collective Action in Virtual Organizations, Networks of Collaboration in an Online Scientific Community – Nina O’Brien, Lauren Frank, Jessica Gould, Courtney Schultz, Matthew Weber, Peter Monge
Presentation (PDF file)

Ecological Dynamics of Discourse in Scientific Communities: Co-evolution of Conceptual and Social Networks – Drew Margolin
Presentation (PDF file)

Examining Online Organizations with Longitudinal Network Data from the World Wide Web - Matthew Weber, Peter Monge
Presentation (PDF file)

Predictors & Effects of Multiplexity in an Interorganizational Network – Amanda M. Beacom, Lauren B. Frank, Jonathan Nomachi, & Lark Galloway-Gilliam
Presentation (PDF file)

Team Assembly and Scientific Collaboration on NanoHub – Drew Margolin, Katherine Ognyanova, Cuihua Shen, Meikuan Huang, Yun Huang, Noshir Contractor
Presentation (PDF file)

The Importance of Place in Collaborative Inter-Organizational Networks – Lauren B. Frank, Amanda M. Beacom, Jonathan Nomachi, Lark Galloway-Gilliam
Presentation (PDF file)

Tom Valente – network scientist, friend of ANN and professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine – has published a new paper written in collaboration with Kayo Fujimoto. A preprint of the article was recently released by the Social Networks journal.

From the paper:

“This paper proposes several measures for bridging in networks derived from Granovetter’s (1973) insight that links which reduce distances in a network are important structural bridges. Bridging is calculated by systematically deleting links and calculating the resultant changes in network cohesion (measured as the inverse average path length). The average change for each node’s links provides an individual level measure of bridging. We also present a normalized version which controls for network size and a network-level bridging index. Bridging properties are demonstrated on hypothetical networks, empirical networks, and a set of 100 randomly generated networks to show how the bridging measure correlates with existing network measures such as degree, personal network density, constraint, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality, and vitality. Bridging and the accompanying methodology provide a family of new network measures useful for studying network structure, network dynamics, and network effects on substantive behavioral phenomenon.”

From the Web Science Trust:

The list of the founding WSTNet labs includes:

• Annenberg Network of Networks, University of Southern California
• Decentralized Information Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Department of Computer Science, VU Amsterdam
• Digital Enterprise Research Institute, NUI Galway
• Institute for Web Science and Technologies (WeST), Universität Koblenz-Landau
• Oxford Internet Institute
• SONIC Lab, Northwestern University
• Tsinghua-Southampton Web Science Laboratory at Shenzhen
• Web Science Research Centre, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• Web Science Research Group, University of Southampton

The international Network Theory Conference, organized by the ANN and SONIC research centers,  took place on Feb 19-20 at the University of Southern California. Bruno Latour delivered the keynote speech titled “Networks, Societies, Spheres: Reflections of an Actor-network theorist.” The four panels were focused on conceptual and methodological aspects of network theory, network inclusion and exclusion, network theories of power, and the semantic web. The list of presenters includes: Noshir Contractor, Peter Monge, Paul Leonardi, Yochai Benkler, Ernest J. Wilson III, Rahul Tongia, Karine Barzilai-Nahon, Wendy Hall, Nigel Shadbolt, David Grewal, and Manuel Castells.

Additional information: conference program, participant biographies and presentation slides. Brief summaries of all presentations and Q&A sessions will soon be posted on the ANN website.

Watch the full video from the event below
(use the side arrows to move forward and back through the conference panels)

(YouTube playlist  link)

Noshir Contractor, the Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University, talks about his research on social networks. Nosh is the director of the SONIC network research center, which has partnered with ANN to study scientific collaboration in virtual teams.

(via the Center for Internet Research)

Yuan, Y. Connie,  Fulk, Janet,  Monge, Peter R.,  Contractor, Noshir

Communication Research 2010 37: 20-47

Just out in the new issue of Communication Research – an article combining social psychology and social network theory to explore transactive  memory processes.

Communication Research

Article abstract:
“Building on Kozlwoski and Klein’s emergence framework, this research developed and tested a set of multilevel hypotheses regarding individual and team transactive memory processes in work teams. Literature from social psychology suggested hypotheses on how shared task interdependence influences individual expertise exchange. Social network theory suggested hypotheses that individual expertise exchange is channeled according to communication tie strength. Using data collected from 218 individuals from 18 organizational teams, the proposed hypotheses were tested using hierarchical linear modeling techniques. The results showed that at the individual level the relationship between directory development and expertise exchange was mediated by communication tie strength and moderated by shared task interdependence.Team-level variables also were significantly related to individual-level outcomes such that individual expertise exchange happened more frequently in teams with well-developed team-level expertise directories, as well as with higher team communication tie strength and shared task interdependence.”

Elsevier

The Social Networks journal has published the first of its two special issues on network dynamcis: Dynamics of Social Networks edited by Patrick Doreian, Tom A.B. Snijders.

From the editors:

“This journal issue contains the first of two connected special issues on Dynamics of Social Networks. This second special issue will appear later this year. For a rather long time, attention to dynamic aspects in Social Network Analysis took the form of descriptive studies. However, over the last fifteen years model-based approaches to studying network change have been flowering. Landmarks were three special issues on Network Evolution of the Journal of Mathematical Sociology, edited by Frans Stokman and Patrick Doreian, in 1996 (with a book version: Doreian and Stokman, 1997 In: P. Doreian and F.N. Stokman, Editors, Evolution of Social Networks, Gordon and Breach Publishers, Amsterdam (1997).Doreian and Stokman, 1997), 2001, and 2003. These three special issues demonstrated how formal and statistical modeling and empirical analysis were coming together. The 2001 and 2003 special issues were focused on joining of theoretical developments with the analysis of empirical data using advanced modeling. This special issue presents a continuation of jointly using theories and modeling to understand social network phenomena.”

Facebook Fellowship Program

Every day Facebook confronts the most complex technical problems and we believe that close relationships with the academy will enable us to address many of these problems at a fundamental level and solve them. As part of our ongoing commitment to academic relations, we are pleased to announce the creation of the Facebook Fellowship program to support graduate students in the 2010-2011 school year.

We are interested in a wide range of academic topics, including the following topical areas:

* Internet Economics: auction theory and algorithmic game theory relevant to online advertising auctions.
* Cloud Computing: storage, databases, and optimization for computing in a massively distributed environment.
* Social Computing: models, algorithms and systems around social networks, social media, social search and collaborative environments.
* Data Mining and Machine Learning: learning algorithms, feature generation, and evaluation methods to produce effective online and offline models of behavioral signals.
* Systems: hardware, operating system, runtime, and language support for fast, scalable, efficient data centers.
* Information Retrieval: search algorithms, information extraction, question answering, cross-lingual retrieval and multimedia retrieval

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James Fowler

The Annenberg Networks Network is pleased to invite you to a presentation given by James Fowler, associate professor in the Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems at CALIT2 and the political science department at the University of California, San Diego.

Dr Fowler’s work is in the areas of social networks, behavioral economics, evolutionary game theory, political participation, cooperation, and genopolitics (the study of the genetic basis of political behavior).

The title of the talk at USC – and of Fowler’s recently published book – is “Connected: The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives.”

The presentation will take place on November 23rd, at noon in the Geoffrey Cowan Forum (ASC Room 207), Annenberg, University of Southern California.

Parking information and directions to campus.

James Moody announces the publishing of a new blog network paper by Carter Butts and Remy Cross in the Journal of Social Structure.

Journal of Social Structure

From the authors:

“This study examines global patterns of stability and change within six longitudinal samples of English-language weblogs (or “blogs”) during the 2004 U.S. Presidential election campaign. Using distance-based methods of graph comparison, we explore the evolution of the blog-blog citation networks for each sample during the period. In addition to describing the qualitative dynamics of the blog networks, we relate major campaign events (e.g., party political conventions and debates) to the observed pace of change. As we demonstrate, such events are associated with substantial differences in overall network volatility; moreover, volatility is also shown to have strong seasonal and endogenous components. Our findings suggest that external factors (both regular and episodic) may be important drivers of network dynamics.”

CMU CASOS

The CASOS center at Carnegie Mellon University released new versions of their network analysis tools *ORA and Automap.

New features of *ORA include improved coordination between components, a Word  Cloud generator, improved support for foreign languages and Geospatial reporting.

The text mining tool Automap has an improved user interface and better text extracting capabilities.

Paper abstract:

“Confidence is an essential ingredient of success in a wide range of domains including job performance, mental health, sports, business, and combat. Many authors have suggested that overconfidence–defined here as believing you are better than you are in reality–is advantageous because it serves to increase ambition, resolve, morale, persistence, and/or the bluffing of opponents. However, too much overconfidence can cause arrogance, market bubbles, financial collapses, policy failures, disasters, and wars, so it remains a puzzle how such a false belief could evolve or remain stable in a population of competing accurate beliefs. Here, we present an evolutionary model that shows overconfidence actually maximizes individual fitness and populations will tend to become overconfident, as long as the resources at stake during conflicts exceed twice the cost of competition. This is because overconfident individuals make more challenges when there is uncertainty about the strength of opponents (and thus the outcome of conflicts), while less confident individuals shy away from many conflicts they would win. Where the value of a prize is at least twice the cost of trying, overconfidence is the best strategy. The model suggests that the conditions under which humans would have evolved to have a “rational” unbiased view of their own capabilities are exceedingly rare, and it helps to explain why resource-rich environments can paradoxically create more conflict. Moreover, the fact that overconfident populations are evolutionarily stable may be one reason why overconfidence persists today in politics, business, and finance, even if it causes occasional disasters.”

Elsevier’s Social Networks journal has published a corrected proof of a paper written by Uwe Matzat and Chris Snijders comparing the quality of ego-network data collected online vs. offline.

Elsevier

Paper abstract:

“We analyze whether differences in kind and quality of ego-centered network data are related to whether the data are collected online or offline. We report the results of two studies. In the first study respondents could choose between filling out ego-centered data through a web questionnaire and being probed about their network in a personalized interview. The second study used a design in which respondents were allocated at random to either online or offline data collection. Our results show that the data quality suffers from the online data collection and the findings indicate that this is the consequence of the respondents answering “mechanically”. We conclude that network researchers should avoid to simply copy traditional network items into a web questionnaire. More research is needed about how new design elements specific for web questionnaires can motivate respondents to fill out network questions properly.”

Informaworld

In the last  issue of Communication Monographs Frank Tutzauer and  Benjamin Elbirt propose a new measure of centralization for networks characterized by path-transfer processes.

From the authors:

“This article proposes a new measure of network centralization and reports the results of a simulation designed to determine the sampling distribution of the proposed measure.
The measure is based on the information-theoretic concept of entropy and is appropriate for those networks in which traffic flows over paths and propagates by means of transference.Tables of critical values are constructed which allow the researcher to conduct tests of significance.”

“The structure of the paper is as follows: First, the example networks used in this article will be described. Following an overview of some of the key developments in the centrality and centralization literature, including Borgatti’s (2005) taxonomy, pathtransfer processes will be modeled stochastically and the centrality measure appropriate for such processes will be reviewed. This actor-based measure of centrality will then be used to construct a network-based measure of centralization. Next, a simulation will be conducted that will allow the constuction of tables of critical values.  Finally, the critical-value tables will be applied to the illustrative networks and a few concluding thoughts will be offered.”

From the introduction of the issue (Wolfram Kaiser):

Journal of Public Policy

“Given its complex multilevel governance structures, the European Union (EU) is an obvious focus for studying policy networks as informal coordination mechanisms between state and non-state or public and private actors. The importance of this research field has increased exponentially with the EU’s spatial expansion, its institutional deepening, its forays into new policy areas and its growing role as an international actor. Research on policy networks at first focussed on analysing changes in national political systems and policy-making in particular policy fields. This approach is now being applied more systematically and comprehensively to understanding the transformation of EU governance during the last decade.

[…] In analysing the role of policy networks in the EU, the contributors to this special issue do not take a simple pro or con position in the debate about whether networks play an important role in governance or constitute a new form of governance. In fact, the structures, activities and functions of networks in the EU appear to vary too much to allow for such sweeping generalisations. Collectively, the papers endorse theoretical and methodological pluralism and stay away from grand meta-theoretical battles. Instead, the special issue combines articles utilizing quantitative, formal social network analysis and more descriptive qualitative approaches to understanding different dimensions of networked European politics and transdisciplinary collaboration embracing both historical and contemporary analysis of EU governance.”

From the publisher’s  description:

Manuel Castells

We live in the midst of a revolution in communication technologies that affects the way in which people feel, think, and behave. The mass media (including web-based media), Manuel Castells argues, has become the space where political and business power strategies are played out; power now lies in the hands of those who understand or control communication.

Over the last thirty years, Castells has emerged as one of the world’s leading communications theorists. In this, his most far-reaching book for a decade, he explores the nature of power itself, in the new communications environment.

His vision encompasses business, media, neuroscience, technology, and, above all, politics. His case histories include global media deregulation, the misinformation that surrounded the invasion of Iraq, environmental movements, the role of the internet in the Obama presidential campaign, and media control in Russia and China.

In the new network society of instant messaging, social networking, and blogging – “mass self-communication” – politics is fundamentally media politics. This fact is behind a worldwide crisis of political legitimacy that challenges the meaning of democracy in much of the world. Deeply researched, far-reaching in scope, and incisively argued, this is a book for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics and character of the modern world.

Communication Power

“How could Manuel Castells have predicted that now is the time of the perfect storm? I do not know. But I do know that his new book coincides with the largest downturn in global economies since the 1930s, with the most important American election since the 1960s, with a most radical transformation of world politics in many generations, and with the most profound reevaluation of the lives of modern citizens, from what they value to how they communicate. We have become used to Castells’ careful scholarship and penetrating analyses but in this new book he cuts deeper into the heart of the matter. Sometimes he provides illuminating answers and where he cannot, he frames the questions that must be answered. This is a powerful and much needed book for a world in crisis.”
–Antonio Damasio

“Manuel Castells unites the mind of a social scientist with the soul of an artist. His trilogy took us to the edge of the millennium. This book takes us beyond to the critical crossroads of the 21st century, where technology, communication, and power converge.”
–Rosalind Williams, Director, Program on Science, Technology and Society, MIT

Harvard Networked Governance

“The idea for this special issue arose in conjunction with the first conference on “Networks in Political Science,” held at Harvard University, June 13-14, 2008. The conference was cochaired by David Lazer of Harvard University and James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, and supported with a grant from the National Science Foundation, with John Scholz of Florida State University as the principal investigator. [...] This special issue publishes eight of the best articles from the conference that focused on American politics.”

Doyne Farmer, Duncan Foley (2009), Nature

From the article :

Image: Nature

” The best models they have are of two types, both with fatal flaws. Type one is econometric: empirical statistical models that are fitted to past data. These successfully forecast a few quarters ahead as long as things stay more or less the same, but fail in the face of great change. Type two goes by the name of ‘dynamic stochastic general equilibrium’. These models assume a perfect world, and by their very nature rule out crises of the type we are experiencing now.”

“There is a better way: agent-based models. An agent-based model is a computerized simulation of a number of decision-makers (agents) and institutions, which interact through prescribed rules. The agents can be as diverse as needed — from consumers to policy-makers and Wall Street professionals — and the institutional structure can include everything from banks to the government. Such models do not rely on the assumption that the economy will move towards a predetermined equilibrium state, as other models do. Instead, at any given time, each agent acts according to its current situation, the state of the world around it and the rules governing its behaviour.”

Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon (2009), Social networks

Links play a twofold role on the web: they open the channels through which users access information, and they determine the centrality of sites and their visibility. This paper adds two factors to the analysis of links that aim to draw a parallel between the web and other offline interorganisational networks: the resources that the organisations publishing online are able to mobilise, and the status or public recognition of those organisations. Exponential random graph models (ERGMs) are used to analyse a sample of the web of about one thousand sites, showing that both the economic resources of the producers of the sites (a proxy to their wider pool of resources) and their presence in traditional news media (a proxy to their status) significantly increase their probability of receiving more links, and therefore, their centrality. This adds a sociologically relevant dimension to the analysis of the web that has been disregarded so far but that is crucial to understand the way it distributes visibility.

Science - Complexity cover

The issue description from Science:

In the 24 July 2009 issue, Science highlights how network analysis is allowing us to understand how the world works from new vantage points. Perspective articles examine the foundations of network analysis and its applications across disciplinary fields from economics to ecology; News stories look at the use of network tools to study social phenomena; and a Review article explains how molecular biologists are using networks to analyze basic cellular circuitry. Science Careers highlights careers in network science and the 28 July issue of Science Signaling delves into the dynamics of cell signaling networks.