Social Network Analysis

Catalog description

This course is an introduction to the theory and methods employed in social network analysis. Foundational to the study of social network analysis is the understanding that actors are interdependent, and that social structure emerges from regularities in this interdependence. Focus in social network analysis includes how networks form and evolve, and on how relationships affect the behavior and outcomes of actors in a network. Social network analysis also refers to the corresponding methods for investigating and measuring social structures and the dependencies between actors. This course primarily focuses on social network methods but will necessarily cover foundational concepts. Both descriptive and inferential approaches to social network analysis will be covered. The approach taken to the material will be a combination of lecture, labs, quizzes, and homework, with final application in the form of a research proposal/paper. Homework assignments will focus on the analysis and interpretation of a variety of network data sets. By the end of the class, each student should be familiar with the most commonly employed methods in social network analysis and should be competent at both applying and interpreting these methods for both exploratory analysis and theory testing. Students will also be exposed to the use of the R statistical computing system for network analysis and RStudio, yet familiarity with programming in R is not a pre-requisite.