Analyzing Social Networks Using R

This approachable book introduces network research in R, walking you through every step of doing social network analysis. Drawing together research design, data collection and data analysis, it explains the core concepts of network analysis in a non-technical way. The book balances an easy to follow explanation of the theoretical and statistical foundations underpinning network analysis with practical guidance on key steps like data management, preparation and visualisation. With clarity and expert insight, it: • Discusses measures and techniques for analyzing social network data, including digital media • Explains a range of statistical models including QAP and ERGM, giving you the tools to approach different types of networks • Offers digital resources like practice datasets and worked examples that help you get to grips with R software

Presenting a comprehensive resource for the mastery of network analysis in R, the goal of Network Analysis with R is to introduce modern network analysis techniques in R to social, physical, and health scientists. The mathematical foundations of network analysis are emphasized in an accessible way and readers are guided through the basic steps of network studies: network conceptualization, data collection and management, network description, visualization, and building and testing statistical models of networks. As with all of the books in the Use R! series, each chapter contains extensive R code and detailed visualizations of datasets. Appendices will describe the R network packages and the datasets used in the book. An R package developed specifically for the book, available to readers on GitHub, contains relevant code and real-world network datasets as well.

Introduction to Social Network Analysis with R provides an introduction to performing SNA studies using R, combining the theories of social networks and methods of social network analysis with the R environment as an open source system for statistical data analysis and graphics.

Written by a stellar team of experts, Analyzing Social Networks is a practical book on how to collect, visualize, analyze and interpret social network data with a particular emphasis on the use of the software tools UCINET and Netdraw. The book includes a clear and detailed introduction to the fundamental concepts of network analyses, including centrality, subgroups, equivalence and network structure, as well as cross-cutting chapters that helpfully show how to apply network concepts to different kinds of networks. Written using simple language and notation with few equations, this book masterfully covers the research process, including: · The initial design stage · Data collection and manipulation · Measuring key variables · Exploration of structure · Hypothesis testing · Interpretation This is an essential resource for students, researchers and practitioners across the social sciences who want to use network analysis as part of their research. Available with Perusall—an eBook that makes it easier to prepare for class Perusall is an award-winning eBook platform featuring social annotation tools that allow students and instructors to collaboratively mark up and discuss their SAGE textbook. Backed by research and supported by technological innovations developed at Harvard University, this process of learning through collaborative annotation keeps your students engaged and makes teaching easier and more effective. Learn more.

Networks have permeated everyday life through everyday realities like the Internet, social networks, and viral marketing. As such, network analysis is an important growth area in the quantitative sciences, with roots in social network analysis going back to the 1930s and graph theory going back centuries. Measurement and analysis are integral components of network research. As a result, statistical methods play a critical role in network analysis. This book is the first of its kind in network research. It can be used as a stand-alone resource in which multiple R packages are used to illustrate how to conduct a wide range of network analyses, from basic manipulation and visualization, to summary and characterization, to modeling of network data. The central package is igraph, which provides extensive capabilities for studying network graphs in R. This text builds on Eric D. Kolaczyk’s book Statistical Analysis of Network Data (Springer, 2009).

Presented in a comprehensive manner, this book provides a comprehensive foundation in algebraic approaches for the analysis of different types of social networks such as multiple, signed, and affiliation networks. The study of such configurations corresponds to the structural analysis within the social sciences, and the methods applied for the analysis are in the areas of abstract algebra, combinatorics, and graph theory. Current research in social networks has moved toward the examination of more realistic but also more complex social relations by which agents or actors are connected in multiple ways. Addressing this trend, this book offers hands-on training of the algebraic procedures presented along with the computer package multiplex, written by the book’s author specifically to perform analyses of multiple social networks. An introductory section on both complex networks and for R will feature, however the subjects themselves correspond to advanced courses on social network analysis with the specialization on algebraic models and methods.

Understanding the social relations within the fields of business and economics is vital for the promotion of success within a certain organization. Analytics and statistics have taken a prominent role in marketing and management practices as professionals are constantly searching for a competitive advantage. Converging these technological tools with traditional methods of business relations is a trending area of research. Applied Social Network Analysis With R: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an essential reference source that materializes and analyzes the issue of structure in terms of its effects on human societies and the state of the individuals in these communities. Even though the theme of the book is business-oriented, an approach underlining and strengthening the ties of this field of study with social sciences for further development is adopted throughout. Therefore, the knowledge presented is valid for analyzing not only the organization of the business world but also for the organization of any given community. Featuring research on topics such as network visualization, graph theory, and micro-dynamics, this book is ideally designed for researchers, practitioners, business professionals, managers, programmers, academicians, and students seeking coverage on analyzing social and business networks using modern methods of statistics, programming, and data sets.

Tap into the realm of social media and unleash the power of analytics for data-driven insights using R About This Book A practical guide written to help leverage the power of the R eco-system to extract, process, analyze, visualize and model social media data Learn about data access, retrieval, cleaning, and curation methods for data originating from various social media platforms. Visualize and analyze data from social media platforms to understand and model complex relationships using various concepts and techniques such as Sentiment Analysis, Topic Modeling, Text Summarization, Recommendation Systems, Social Network Analysis, Classification, and Clustering. Who This Book Is For It is targeted at IT professionals, Data Scientists, Analysts, Developers, Machine Learning Enthusiasts, social media marketers and anyone with a keen interest in data, analytics, and generating insights from social data. Some background experience in R would be helpful, but not necessary, since this book is written keeping in mind, that readers can have varying levels of expertise. What You Will Learn Learn how to tap into data from diverse social media platforms using the R ecosystem Use social media data to formulate and solve real-world problems Analyze user social networks and communities using concepts from graph theory and network analysis Learn to detect opinion and sentiment, extract themes, topics, and trends from unstructured noisy text data from diverse social media channels Understand the art of representing actionable insights with effective visualizations Analyze data from major social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Github, StackExchange, and so on Learn to leverage popular R packages such as ggplot2, topicmodels, caret, e1071, tm, wordcloud, twittR, Rfacebook, dplyr, reshape2, and many more In Detail The Internet has truly become humongous, especially with the rise of various forms of social media in the last decade, which give users a platform to express themselves and also communicate and collaborate with each other. This book will help the reader to understand the current social media landscape and to learn how analytics can be leveraged to derive insights from it. This data can be analyzed to gain valuable insights into the behavior and engagement of users, organizations, businesses, and brands. It will help readers frame business problems and solve them using social data. The book will also cover several practical real-world use cases on social media using R and its advanced packages to utilize data science methodologies such as sentiment analysis, topic modeling, text summarization, recommendation systems, social network analysis, classification, and clustering. This will enable readers to learn different hands-on approaches to obtain data from diverse social media sources such as Twitter and Facebook. It will also show readers how to establish detailed workflows to process, visualize, and analyze data to transform social data into actionable insights. Style and approach This book follows a step-by-step approach with detailed strategies for understanding, extracting, analyzing, visualizing, and modeling data from several major social network platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr, Github, and StackExchange. The chapters cover several real-world use cases and leverage data science, machine learning, network analysis, and graph theory concepts along with the R ecosystem, including popular packages such as ggplot2, caret,dplyr, topicmodels, tm, and so on.