Network analysis (aka social network analysis, link analysis) is a promising and popular technique for uncovering relationships between diverse individuals and organizations. It is widely used in intelligence and law enforcement, but not so much in journalism. We’ll look at basic techniques and algorithms and try to understand the promise — and the many practical problems.
Readings
- Analyzing the Data Behind Skin and Bone, ICIJ
- Identifying the Community Power Structure, an old handbook for community development workers about figuring out who is influential by very manual processes.
- Simmelian Backbones: Amplifying Hidden Homophily in Facebook Networks. A soophisticated and sociologically-aware network analysis method.
Recommended
- Visualizing Communities, Jonathan Stray
- The network of global corporate control, Vitali et. al.
- The Dynamics of Protest Recruitment through an Online Network, Sandra González-Bailón, et al.
- Sections I and II of Community Detection in Graphs, Fortunato
- Centrality and Network Flow, Borgatti
- Exploring Enron, Jeffrey Heer
Examples:
- Galleon’s Web, Wall Street Journal
- Muckety
- Theyrule.net,
- Connected China, Reuters