Social network analysis: mapping online and offline social relations

This online workshop has been organised by the Data, Communication and New Technologies (DCT) Pathway and is open to all ESRC and non-ESRC funded PhD and MA Social Research students within the WRDTP’s seven partner universities. Whilst this workshop is aimed at DCT Pathway students, PGRs from all seven interdisciplinary Pathways are welcome to attend.

Network graphs are among the most common forms of online data visualisation, especially in studies looking at user interactions or topical dimensions of public conversations. This session will introduce Social Network Analysis, a technique that has been employed by social scientists for a long time but has suddenly come to the fore in the past few years with the emergence of social media research.

During the workshop, we will practice network visualisation techniques of Twitter data with Gephi (https://gephi.org/)

By the end of the session, students will:

• Be able to discuss the uses and potential findings produced by a social network analysis project;
• Be able discuss core theoretical concepts related to social network analysis;
• Be able to produce network graphs with gephi.