=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1297/10-12_paper-3
|storemode=property
|title=Социальные сети в социальных науках
(Social Networks Meet Social Science)
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1297/10-12_paper-3.pdf
|volume=Vol-1297
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/rcdl/Chernov14
}}
==Социальные сети в социальных науках
(Social Networks Meet Social Science)
==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1297/10-12_paper-3.pdf
Social Networks Meet Social Science
© Sergey Chernov
Center for the Study of New Media and Society, New Economic School,
Moscow
schernov@nes.ru
understanding characteristics and mechanisms of a
Abstract modern society. Such division of competencies creates
Computer science research community devoted a a need for the interdisciplinary research teams and a
special attention to the studies of online social number of highly visible research papers were produced
networks. In the meantime, we observed that by consortia of social and data processing experts.
algorithms and data processing techniques are To provide an overview of problems and challenges
often not enough to fully exploit research potential addressed by the social sciences using online networking
of social data available. One needs a set of models data, we selected a set of publications from four
and methods explaining social interaction to pose aforementioned branches of social sciences. Each study is
meaningful questions on the wealth of data. This is summarized into a key research question, a method used and
a moment when social sciences come into a a general outcome. We grouped these works by the field of
picture providing the necessary tools and study, while some papers might be attributed to two or more
knowledge. Here we review some research papers disciplines. We also made an attempt to mention some
on online social networks, which have been national papers where applicable. Finally, some relevant
published in the fields of economics, sociology, studies completed with support from the Center for the
psychology and political science. We hope, such Study of New Media and Society were added to the picture.
an interdisciplinary view on the social network
research might help to eliminate existing gap 2 Psychology
between information management experts and An interesting compilation of papers on online
scholars from social sciences. addiction is prepared by Kuss and Griffiths [19]. One of the
most comprehensive reviews of psychologically oriented
1 Introduction research using Facebook was done by Wilson, Gosling, and
Recent boom of online social networks provided Graham in 2012 [32]. A large volume of more than 400
computer scientists with a lot of new research directions articles has been split into five categories including: into 5
and inspired numerous efficient algorithms for scalable categories: descriptive analysis of users, motivations for
network analysis. In addition, it motivated scholars using Facebook, identity presentation, the role of Facebook
from social sciences like economics, sociology, in social interactions, and privacy and information
psychology and political science, to catch up with disclosure. Descriptive analysis focuses on Facebook users
modern data processing techniques. The massive and their typical online behaviour. Motivations part is about
datasets of digitized social data attracted social why people use Facebook and identity presentation is about
scientists, who rarely worked with terabytes of how they want to look for the outside world. Social
information or used scalable data analysis algorithms. interaction category studies relationships between
Their usual toolbox is tailored to hundreds and individuals and groups. Finally, privacy and information
thousands of data points, which are rather trustworthy disclosure papers target various trade-offs between personal
and verifiable. In contrast, contemporary social graphs information sharing and associated risks.
are built from millions of nodes and billions of edges, Following the proposed categories, we pick few
the data is highly dynamic, incomplete, unreliable and representative papers from each. For example, in-house
difficult to interpret. Facebook research lab published in 2011 one of the
It is reasonable to assume that online analytical tools largest studies describing inhabitants of the biggest
from computer science will be widely adopted by social social network [2, 3, 27]. For the motivation study we
scientists in a short term prospective and current take an example addressing psychological well-being
technological gap will be eliminated. On the other hand, and increased social capital of the users [23]. A case
the social disciplines will stay superior in posing right study of identity representation from [29] confirms old
questions on social data, which is a key skill in wisdom that attractive photos are more likely to help in
getting new friends than unattractive ones. One recent
Proceedings of the 16th All-Russian Conference “Digital work which caught quite some attention in press is
Libraries: Advanced Methods and Technologies, Digital devoted to social interactions, in particular, Backstrom
Collections” ― RCDL-2014, Dubna, Russia, October and Kleinberg [4] studied possibility of identifying
13–16, 2014. romantic relationship between two people based on
10
their network neighborhood alone. The results are 6 Conclusions
promising and might lead to finding structurally
significant people in various online applications. This survey is a minor step towards better
cooperation between computer science and social
3 Sociology sciences communities. A set of research problems listed
above is not exhaustive by any means, but rather a basic
The methods of sociological research could be selection for future development. We hope, interested
considered as the most demanded from the computer readers will follow the way of diving into alien, but
science community. Several basic notions in social interesting research disciplines, and will find necessary
network analysis have deep roots in sociology, starting bits of knowledge, which are invisible within their
from the famous works by Granovetter granovetter1973 native research circle.
or by Travers and Milgram [25]. A good introductions
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