Why social network analysis occurs
With the rapid development of the Internet and social networks, people have more access to information, and traditional offline social activities have gradually transformed into online social interactions. More frequent social activities have generated a large amount of social information. This complicated and complicated information has exploded to different user groups along with social network activities and changed the behavior of users. The explosive growth of massive Internet users’ interactive data contains huge research value and commercial value.
What social networks can do
Social network analysis is a technology developed in recent years to study complex networks. The phenomenon of complex networks covers a wide range. Scientific research has found that most practical systems are complex networks, from bacterial, cellular, and protein systems, to family relationships, friendships, and even cooperative relationships among scientific researchers. The citation relationships between papers, large online social networks, web page hyperlinks, etc., all constitute some kind of complex network system. Social network analysis can not only analyze the characteristics of the network as a whole, but also deeply analyze the implicit associations inside the network, and discover the knowledge that humans cannot intuitively discover. Social network analysis aims at how to effectively extract the valuable information in the social network topology and how to efficiently and concisely represent these network structure information.
Core Issues in Social Network Analysis Research
An online social network is a social structure composed of a collection of social individuals and connections between individuals on an information network. It includes three elements: relationship structure, network group, and network information. Among them, the relationship structure of social networks is a network system formed by individual members of society through social relationships. Individuals are also called nodes, which can be entities or virtual individuals with different meanings, such as organizations, individuals, and network IDs. The interrelationships between individuals can be multiple relationships such as relatives and friends, action behaviors, and sending and receiving messages. Among them, the virtual community in a given social network is a subset of the social network, and the nodes in the virtual community are closely related, and the nodes in different virtual communities are sparsely associated. Network social group behavior refers to behaviors in which a network individual aggregates or concentrates on a certain event in a virtual space, interacts, functions, and similarly relies on each other. Information dissemination based on social networks refers to the information transfer between individuals and individuals, between individuals and groups, and between groups in social networks. This transfer can be iterative. Therefore, social network analysis mainly includes three aspects of research objects: (1) the structural characteristics of social networks themselves; (2) groups and their behaviors in social networks; and (3) information and their dissemination in social networks.
The “relationship structure” in social networks provides a low-level platform for the interaction of network groups and is the carrier of social networks; the “network group” directly promotes the spread of network information and in turn affects the relationship structure and is the main body of social networks;
“Network information” and its dissemination are the starting point and destination of social networks, as well as the incentives and effects of group behavior. They also affect the changes in relationship structure and are the objects of social networks. The relationship between the above three can be summarized into three types of problems.
(1) Structural characteristics and evolution mechanism of online social networks. How should the structure of a social network be represented? What kind of representation can both reflect the nature of the social network and support calculation and analysis? What kind of calculation method can accurately describe the evolution of the structure of the social network?
(2) The formation and interaction of group behaviors in online social networks. How to characterize the existence and formation of groups in social networks? How to express and measure the interaction between groups? How should the interaction between groups affect the evolution of groups?
(3) Information dissemination and evolution mechanism of online social networks. How can the connotation of information be expressed in a computable form? What is the calculation method of the spread process and situation of information on social networks? How to use the calculation method to characterize the interaction between information connotation and information dissemination?
shenshen 
Wow, it sounds so interesting that you try to describe what is social media analysics through three aspects. In third part, you introduce the core Issues in social network analysis research, which I did not think deeply before.To be honest, I have learned so much from your post! For instance, you introduced three elements of social media analysis, this information really aroused my interest! However, you show the problems of those three elements, but did not provide any solution. I think if you add some solution or tips we will have a better understanding of social media analysics.
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Thanks for the comments, it makes me feel that writing these things makes sense. Hope to learn from each other.
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Your blog is so clear by highlighting each headlines so that I can jump into each part very quickly.
You express why social media occurs, that is a good view but many of us missed it, I agree traditional offline interaction is kind of boring and can not reach our various daily social requirments, so the social media comes out that ease our communication and interaction. what is more, our interaction may expose to the public, increase the diversity of online community.
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Thanks for the comments, it makes me feel that writing these things makes sense. Hope to learn from each other.
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Hi! Glad to read this well-organized blog. You have stated what social network is and where the value lies thoroughly. It really gave me clear knowledge of social networks, which is what I have not thought much of.
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Thank you for your comment, we learn from each other!
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The structural characteristics, groups, and communication of social networks mentioned in your blog are very interesting and fresh to me. I can understand these concepts through your text
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Thanks for your reply, your blog is also great.
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Your understand of social media analytic is thoughtful and it really enlight me a lot about how socail media work. The core issue of social network analysis research you proposed has huge guiding meaning on the future development of social network analysis.
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Thank you for your reply, your blog is very good.
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(1) Structural characteristics and evolution mechanism of online social networks. How should the structure of a social network be represented? What kind of representation can both reflect the nature of the social network and support calculation and analysis? What kind of calculation method can accurately describe the evolution of the structure of the social network?
(2) The formation and interaction of group behaviors in online social networks. How to characterize the existence and formation of groups in social networks? How to express and measure the interaction between groups? How should the interaction between groups affect the evolution of groups?
(3) Information dissemination and evolution mechanism of online social networks. How can the connotation of information be expressed in a computable form? What is the calculation method of the spread process and situation of information on social networks? How to use the calculation method to characterize the interaction between information connotation and information dissemination?
The final 3 points are the key of the article, they are very important, and I learn a lot.
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Your comments are very good and I have learned a lot.
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