What is social network analysis?

Question

I am interested in the small-world theorem and other ideas of network theory, but I don't know much about it and I don't know where to find out more. I am NOT looking for a layman's introduction to the field. I am pretty good at mathematics, so I just want to dive right in and get dirty with the theory itself. Any suggestions on where to start would be great.

Answer 1

The article below is a pretty good survey, with many good references for you to follow up.



You may also try Wiki (also below), and follow the references there; the entry has a pretty good list of pointers.



SNA is a very hot topic nowadays that goes much beyond its beginnings in Graph Theory and has critical applications, just think of the potential implications for the structural analysis of Terrorist Networks.

Answer 2

Social network analysis is likely an application of discrete mathematics (in general). More specific areas would be graph theory, integer programming, combinatorial/discrete optimization. These areas provide the background to work in social network analysis/theory.



Check out the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS):



www.informs.org



specifically, you'll want to navigate to the discrete math related components of this website.

Answer 3

It's pretty much graph theory.