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>You may also want to reconsider the beautiful collection
>of network diagrams and their natural use in
>
> Moreno: Who shall survive?
> Beacon House, 1953
For those of you have never seen this book, let me second Ulrik and
recommend that you make a trip to your library to look it over. I check
it out to show it to my classes whenever I teach a networks unit.
It is chock-full of these quad-fold-out pages of sociograms that I
suppose Prof. Moreno drew himself with a pen, a circle/triangle
template, and a ruler. Sheesh. And it must have cost a fortune to
print that book. How on earth did he ever sell it to the publisher?!?
Anyway they are networks showing the "geometry of interpersonal
relationships" among kids at a boarding school. It is fascinating to
see the dense cross-sex relationships in the early grades completely
vanish at some grade (sorry I can't remember which one) only to
magically re-grow once the kids hit the teen years.
Best regards,
Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: Social Networks Discussion Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Ulrik Brandes
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 7:39 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SOCNET] On Sociograms.
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On Fri, Apr 14, 2006 at 11:02:55PM +0700, Rick Davies wrote:
> Network diagrams are descriptions (albeit selective ones), and they
only
> make sense in the light of expectations, assumptions, or theories, of
what
> should be there.
Sharpening Rick's point, consider diagrammatic techniques to form
languages. This is good and bad at the same time, since it means that
they allow, e.g., for good and bad expressions, (mis)interpretations,
cultural and contextual dependencies, etc. Some things are just easier
to formulate or understand in one language rather than another.
> On 4/14/06, patrick rose <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > 1) How can I respond to his/her criticisms?
All you need is a good argument why your visualizations ease the
communication of some network-related information. This assumes that
your diagrams are of good quality (not only in terms of resolution) and
make a point that might otherwise by missed or difficult to understand.
Maybe they act as a summary or memorization of what otherwise extends
over several paragraphs.
> > 2) Whar are some general purposes of sociograms and any references
that I
> > can take a look at and/or cite.
As regards references, I point to those Joerg sent (how wouldn't I?)
The general purpose is conveying information about the network. This is
less stupid than it may sound, because it is a question of whether a
diagram is effective for the specific information or not.
To answer this question, you have to be aware of the precise
information that is to be conveyed, how to represent it graphically,
and how to actually produce a diagram that realizes your design [the
substance/design/algorithm argument in J. Theoretical Politics 1999].
A particular strength of network information visualization is the
ability
to express complex dependencies compactly. See
Brandes, Kenis, Raab: Explanation Through Network Visualization.
Methodology 2(1):16-23, 2006.
You may also want to reconsider the beautiful collection of network
diagrams and their natural use in
Moreno: Who shall survive?
Beacon House, 1953
Best regards,
B.
--
Prof. Dr. Ulrik Brandes
Department of Computer & | +49 7531 88 4433 (phone)
Information Science, Box D 67 | +49 7531 88 3577 (fax)
University of Konstanz | [log in to unmask]
78457 Konstanz, Germany | http://www.inf.uni-konstanz.de/~brandes/
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