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For those of you who seek simple examples of SNA for your students or for public talks, may I suggest the following, which just about everyone can identify with.

The Economist recently used some of our work on “book networks” to write an accessible article on choices, networks and the polarization they show.  The book networks are “proxy networks” for the human networks making their choices for what they want to read.

* Many writers try to span America’s political divide — https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21729730-rarely-do-they-succeed-many-writers-try-span-americas-political-divide

* Books aiming to span America’s political divide rarely succeed — https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/09/daily-chart-19

You can then ask students to pick a favorite book(does not have to be political) and map the 1 or 2 step ego network around it… most students really get into this.  
Then they can compare their book networks amongst themselves and look for overlaps... lots of possibilities and a great “first network."

Reference: Valdis Krebs, « Proxy Networks », Bulletin de méthodologie sociologique [Online], 79 | 2003,  URL : http://bms.revues.org/1289

Enjoy!

Valdis

Valdis Krebs


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