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Extending Social Network Analysis with Discourse Analysis: Combining Relational with Interpretive Data

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Book cover The Influence of Technology on Social Network Analysis and Mining

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Social Networks ((LNSN,volume 6))

Abstract

Online occupational communities are a rapidly growing phenomenon and will become increasingly important to firms in the future. This growth has been mirrored by scientific innovations: major advances have been made with regard to technology, software development and statistical modeling. However, we are often left with only partial information: although we might be able to gather very detailed and massive relational data from for example online communities, we often overlook information on the ties that bind. While we are provided with an increasingly detailed topology of a network this does not allude to what content is at stake. We therefore propose to combine Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Discourse Analysis (DA) in order to reach a deeper understanding of the community. Data from an ongoing study of an online occupational community were analyzed as an example using SNA and DA. We present findings from SNA and are able to complement this relational information with interpretive findings from DA. We contribute to the methodological literature on online communities, in particular in the fields of SNA and DA.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘Given a binary incidence matrix A where the rows represent actors and the columns events, then the matrix AA’ gives the number of events in which actors simultaneously attended. Hence AA’ (i,j) is the number of events attended by both actor i and actor j. The matrix A’A gives the number of events simultaneously attended by a pair of actors. Hence A’A(i,j) is the number of actors who attended both event i and event j’ [43].

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Organization Science, Faculty of Social Science, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Christine Moser & Peter Groenewegen

  2. Department of Information, Logistics and Innovation, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Marleen Huysman

Authors
  1. Christine Moser
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  2. Peter Groenewegen
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  3. Marleen Huysman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christine Moser .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Engineering, TOBB University, Sogutozu Cad No. 43, Sogutozu Ankara, Turkey

    Tansel Özyer

  2. Computer Science, University of Calgary, University Dr. NW 2500, Calgary, T2N 1N4, Canada

    Jon Rokne

  3. IPSC, European Commission Joint Research Cent., Via Enrico Fermi 2749, Ispra, 21027, Italy

    Gerhard Wagner

  4. De Wetstraat 16, Leiden, 2332 XT, Netherlands

    Arno H.P. Reuser

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Moser, C., Groenewegen, P., Huysman, M. (2013). Extending Social Network Analysis with Discourse Analysis: Combining Relational with Interpretive Data. In: Özyer, T., Rokne, J., Wagner, G., Reuser, A. (eds) The Influence of Technology on Social Network Analysis and Mining. Lecture Notes in Social Networks, vol 6. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1346-2_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1346-2_24

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7091-1345-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-7091-1346-2

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