ESRC Research Methods Programme

In this presentation I will address the cultural dynamics of communication across intersecting social networks. Drawing upon both network analysis and cultural theory, I will discuss the sociocultural mechanisms by which people maneuver among their multiple identities as they seek to build relations across different kinds of institutional networks. Using my work on Brazilian youth activist networks, I will discuss the ways in which actors engage in identity conflation, suppression, and compartmentalization as they try to build “publics” in the interstices of existing interpersonal and organizational networks. I will examine the mediating processes by which they build (or break) bridges between partially overlapping sectors, including social movements, political parties, religious groups, and cultural or professional organizations. I will examine some of the implications of this approach for research beyond the Brazilian case, such as recent efforts in transnational coalition building.

Mike Savage, Gindo Tampubolon, Alan Warde, Social Capital and Social Networks

The concept of social capital is widely, but often crudely, used, as a cure for all sorts of social ills. Some theorists of social capital speculate that membership of voluntary associations helps generate generalized trust and civic engagement, but no studies have examined how internal network processes might bring this about. We consider whether the substantial differences in the nature and levels of activism in the two organizations - a branch of a political party and a local conservation group in North-west England - can be explained in network terms. We show that the greater engagement found amongst Labour Party members cannot be explained in terms of members’ personal attributes, but, using data on the whole networks of individual members, allied to life history narratives, we show that civic engagement is more likely to be generated where there are distinctive factions and blocks. We generalize theoretically from these case studies to argue that rather than trust arising out of an accepted division of labour within an association, it is more likely to be sustained when members’ trust becomes a means of reconciling differences.

Dr. Deirdre M. Kirke, Friends and Social Networks

This paper will examine how researchers can use social network analysis to analyse friendship relations. I will discuss problems in collecting accurate friendship data and will illustrate how some of these problems have been overcome with the use of social network analysis. Some of the problems include confusion in using the concept 'friend'; using social support questions to identify friends; using perceived, rather than self-reported, 'friend' data; discussing 'peer groups' without collecting data on the group; and exaggerating friend/peer effects. In this paper I will discuss suitable name generator questions to identify friends and will illustrate how social network analysis can be used to identify friendship networks and the different patterns of ties formed. How these patterns affect similarity in teenager's behaviour through influence, selection and chain reactions will be explored. A variety of images of networks will be used to illustrate the talk.

John Scott, Social Physics and Social Networks: a consideration of recent views

There is a long history of associations and connections between those working in physics and those working in sociology and social psychology, from Quetelet’s “social physics” to contemporary complexity theory. In this paper I will review the history of this work, looking at contributions of both physicists and sociologists, highlighting their contribution to the development of social network ideas. I will then critically consider recent work by researchers in physics who have sought to develop new ideas on random networks and to propose this as a basis for new directions in social network analysis

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