8. Introduction to Social Networks

In this section we present a very brief introduction to the emerging field of social networks, to some Python tools for networks, and discuss one area in which Python is not the best option, the visualization of large social networks like the Bill Cheswick’s picture of the Internet from the internet mapping project, shown below.

Source: Bill Cheswick http://www.cheswick.com/ches/map/gallery/index.html

Contents

• 8.1. Social Networks
  • 8.1.1. Why study networks?
  • 8.1.2. What are networks?
  • 8.1.3. Random graphs
  • 8.1.4. Looking ahead
  • 8.1.5. Community discovery: Political blogs
  • 8.1.6. Centrality and graph-partitioning: Zachary’s karate club
  • 8.1.7. Centrality
  • 8.1.8. Graph-partition algorithms
  • 8.1.9. Weak ties
    • 8.1.9.1. Milgram’s experiment: small worlds
    • 8.1.9.2. Power Law Networks
    • 8.1.9.3. Summary
    • 8.1.9.4. Further Reading
    • 8.1.9.5. Appendix: Formulae
• 8.2. Introduction to Networkx
  • 8.2.1. Basics
  • 8.2.2. Graph generators in networkx1
  • 8.2.3. A simple example
  • 8.2.4. Graph analysis
  • 8.2.5. Implementing Girvan-Newman
  • 8.2.6. Using weighted links
  • 8.2.7. Coloring factions
  • 8.2.8. Notes on color
  • 8.2.9. Using the graphviz interface
• 8.3. Using gephi
• 8.4. Anna Karenina Network Assignment