apophenia: Would the real social network please stand up?
danah boyd distinguishes between three types or views of social networks determined by how they are conceptualized or investigated, and these are, she says, "often collapsed in public discourse":
--Sociological "personal" networks
--Behavioral social networks
and
--Publicly articulated social networks
The sociological, she points out, is the source of many of the terms we use to describe online social networks: friend, social capital, &c. And frequently we would probably like to think that online social networks are structures like this type of network, assuming for example, that a friend in this type of network is someone you could approach if you wanted to get some notes from a class you missed. But, in reality, online social networks are more complex, made up of people we work with or are in a class with, or would like to be associated with in some way.
So, it it important in researching social networks to try to focus on what you want to measure: behaviours, attitudes, self-conceptions, &c.
