Social Networks and IT Networks
In our readings, researchers familiar with social network theories discuss how to apply techniques, such as mapping social relations, to computer-mediated communications. Generally, the processes Garton et al. and others propose do not capitalize much on the power of electronic data to provide ready-made materials for study and they certainly do little to work with computing power to visualize the data available.
Needless to say, folks at MIT are working from the other direction, bringing expertise in computing systems and procedures to bear on data that might help illuminate social relations. See the Sociable Media Group for a whole range of interesting projects.
One of the projects I find most interesting, and most closely connected with this course, is the project called Social Network Fragments. Note how the real work of analysis takes place in defining the heuristics to be applied to the data and the real work of discovery comes in deciding how best to make the relationships uncovered visible and interpretable in interesting ways.
