The authors of this book explore social mechanisms that drive network change and link them to computationally sound models of changing structure to detect patterns. This text identifies the social processes generating these networks and how networks have evolved. The authors explore three types of citation networks (bibliometrics, patent citations and citations across Supreme Court cases), networks of football player movements to the EPL and spatial network of 3111 counties in the continental United States.
COBISS.SI-ID: 31563993
Proportions of a total, including social network compositions (proportions of partner, family, friends, etc.) lie in a restricted space, which challenges statistical analysis. Network compositions can be both dependent and explanatory variables and are usually measured with error by survey instruments. Structural equation models make it possible to correct measurement error bias. Coenders et al. (2011) fitted a factor analysis model to transformed network compositions. In this article, we use another transformation called an isometric log-ratio and we extend the model to include predictors and outcomes. The findings and hypotheses in the literature can be reformulated with isometric log-ratios in a more interpretable manner. For instance, we find relationships of gender with partner support, of education and extraversion with friend support, and of family support with tie multiplexity and closeness.
COBISS.SI-ID: 31612253
The article presents several approaches to the blockmodeling of multilevel network data. Multilevel network data consist of networks that are measured on at least two levels (e.g. between organizations and people) and information on ties between those levels (e.g. information on which people are members of which organizations). Several approaches will be considered: a separate analysis of the levels; transform-ing all networks to one level and blockmodeling on this level using information from all levels; and a trulymultilevel approach where all levels and ties among them are modeled at the same time. Advantages anddisadvantages of these approaches will be discussed.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32697949
Discerning the essential structure of social networks is a major task. Yet, social network data usually contain different types of errors, including missing data that can wreak havoc during data analyses. Blockmodeling is one technique for delineating network structure. While we know little about its vulnerability to missing data problems, it is reasonable to expect that it is vulnerable given its positional nature. We focus on actor non-response and treatments for this. We examine their impacts on blockmodeling results using simulated and real networks. A set of "known" networks are used, errors due toactor non-response are introduced and are then treated in different ways. Blockmodels are fitted to these treated networks and compared to those for theknown networks. The outcome indicators are the correspondence of both position memberships and identified blockmodel structures. Both the amount and type of non-response, and considered treatments, have an impact on delineated blockmodel structures.
COBISS.SI-ID: 31119197
Participation in health-related online support communities plays an important role in the psychological empowerment of people who are faced with health problems. Research has suggested that important differences exist in terms of psychological empowerment depending on the form and intensity of participation in such domains by showing that users who contribute to health-related online support communities by posting messages (posters) generally experience greater benefits in terms of intrapersonal empowerment, compared to participants who only read messages (lurkers). However, as yet, very little is known about how the often-neglected interactional aspect of psychological empowerment is associated with participation in these online domains. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore how different forms and intensity of participation in health-related online support communities are associated with both dimensions of psychological empowerment. Drawing on a nonprobability sample of 616 participants in two health-related online support communities, the analysis of the data, obtained with an online questionnaire, revealed that posters scored significantly higher in degree of interactional empowerment than lurkers, whereas no difference was observed in terms of intrapersonal empowerment. In addition, high posting frequency was significantly associated with a high level of interactional empowerment but not intrapersonal empowerment. The study suggests that to better understand the empowering potential of participation for users of health-related online support communities, it is important to distinguish not only between various forms of participation but also between different aspects of psychological empowerment.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32550237