With its hyperlink structure, relational tables, friend lists and constant stream of information diffusion, network analysis is an obvious route to the analysis and understanding of the Internet’s dynamics. Indeed, the algorithms that power Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter are based in network science. This option course for the OII MSc in “Social Science of the Internet” introduces social network analysis with particular emphasis on research design, data collection and analysis. We take a comparative approach to network topics, such as evaluating different measures of centrality, multiple approaches to clustering and variations on visualization, aiming not just to familiarize students with the basics of network analysis capture and analysis, but also to enable them to make informed choices for analysis based on research questions rather than default tools or outmoded conventions.
