In this book, leading methodologists address the issue of how effectively to apply the latest developments in social network analysis to behavioural and social science disciplines. Topics examined include: ways to specify the network contents to be studied; how to select the method for representing network structures; how social network analysis has been used to study interorganizational relations via the resource dependence model; how to use a contact matrix for studying the spread of disease in epidemiology; and how cohesion and structural equivalence network theories relate to studying social influence. The book also offers some statistical models for social support networks.

Network Analysis and Computer-Mediated Communication Systems

Network analysis and computer-mediated communication systems
Ronald E.Rice

Computer-Mediated Communication Systems: Constraints and Interaction

Networks, as a theoretical perspective, analytical construct, methodological approach, and pragmatic concern, have been important to a wide variety of communication research concerns, including small groups (Shaw, 1978), R&D collaboration (Allen, 1977), organizational communication (Tushman, 1977), organizational structure and relations (Aldrich & Whetten, 1981; Tichy, 1981), and numerous other topics such as diffusion of innovations and national development (Rogers & Kincaid, 1981). The breadth and depth of network-oriented research in the communication sciences is too vast to even outline in a single chapter. Rather, this chapter limits its focus to one specific, but new and growing area of interest: the adoption, uses, and implications of computer-mediated communication (CMC) ...

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