Abstract
Even though social networking sites are very popular all around the globe, social networks for professionals have not received much attention from the scientific community. We study how physicians interact with each other from the perspective of network analysis. In our study, we treat each physician as a node, and the link between them represents their interaction through posting and comments. We study the topological features of the network of physicians. Structural statistics, such as power-law degree distribution, reciprocity, assortativity, and bow-tie structure are discussed. Moreover, physicians’ demographic information is included in our analysis to uncover features of the network. We discover the community structure of the network on the basis of physicians’ specialties. Inter- and intra-specialty communications are examined. Our study contributes to the literature a study on a medium-scale professional social network. The systematic analysis presents a full picture of the network with more detailed and in-depth understanding.
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Hua, G., Haughton, D. A network analysis of an online expertise sharing community. Soc. Netw. Anal. Min. 2, 291–303 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-012-0047-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-012-0047-y