A presentation I gave for GS 197: Culture and its Global Entanglements, an undergrad class at University of the Philippines Diliman

1. Networks: Some Notes
Diego Maranan
dmaranan@upou.edu.ph
Faculty of Information and Communication Studies, UP Open University
GS 197, 11 December 2008

2. slides omitted from last time
email addresses
issues/questions/reactions from previous class
(there are no stupid questions)

3. Networks: A special kind of graph
● Graph: A collection of nodes interconnected by
paths
●
Network: A collection of nodes interconnected
by communication paths

4. What does this have to do with
culture?
Analyzing networks may provide answers to
interesting and important questions regarding
anything that can be represented as a network:
bodies of knowledge
communities
organizations

5. Are “artificial” groups consistent with de facto,
“naturally-occuring” groups?
How robust is the network to ruptures?
Who/what is on the periphery?
Which are nodes connecting different sub-groups? How
should we treat these nodes differently?
What does the shape of the network suggest about how
knowledge circulates in the network

6. Examples

7. The Network of Scientific Knowledge
(Boyard, 2005)
Maps generated using
eight different journal-
journal similarity
measures
“Biochemistry appears
as the most
interdisciplinary
discipline in science.”

8. The Internet
on Jan 16, 2005
www.opte.org

9. “This image shows the hierarchical on
structure of the Internet, based
the connections between
individual nodes (such as service
providers). Three distinct regions
are apparent: an inner core of
highly connected nodes, an outer
periphery of isolated networks,
and a mantle-like mass of peer-
connected nodes. The bigger the
node, the more connections it
has. Those nodes that are closest
to the center are connected to
http://www.technologyreview.com/player/07/06/19Rowe/1.aspx more well-connected nodes than
are those on the periphery.”

10. “TheInternetAtare about 80of thenodes
core: the center
core
through which most traffic flows.
Remove the core, and 70 percent
of the other nodes are still able to
function through peer-to-peer
connections.
http://www.technologyreview.com/player/07/06/19Rowe/2.aspx

11. “Thethe Internet At the veryoredge of
periphery:
are 5,000 so
isolated nodes that are the most
dependent upon the core and
become cut off if the core is
removed or shut down. Yet those
nodes within this periphery are
able to stay connected because of
their peer-to-peer connections.
http://www.technologyreview.com/player/07/06/19Rowe/3.aspx

12. Mycelium (fungi)
“Nature's original
Internet”
(Paul Stamets, 2007)

13. The notion of the rhizome
(Deleuze and Guattari,1987)
● Connective
– Connections are possible at any point
● Heterogenous
– Unlike items can be connected
● Robust/“asignifying rupture”
– e.g., peer-to-peer connections that allow the
Internet to function even when the most highly-
connected nodes are remocd

14. Network economics
Scarcity does not increase value: How useful was it to
have owned a fax machine when it first came out?
http://flickr.com/photos/nbr/2707844343/sizes/o/

15. My facebook network
generated using http://nexus.ludios.net
Social Networks (1)
Social networking

16. Subgroups in my network
Social Networks: Linking

17. nodes
connecting
subgroups
orphaned
nodes and
subgroups

18. Social network analysis
Developed at the Human-Computer
Interaction Lab at University of
Maryland
Simultaneously presents statisical
analysis alongside social network
analysis graph1
SNAs can be used to examine power
relations2
Screenshot from http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/socialaction
[1] Adam Perer, & Ben Shneiderman. (2008). Integrating Statistics and Visualization: Case Studies of Gaining Clarity during Exploratory Data Analysis. In Proceedings
of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Florence, Italy.
[2] e.g., Padgett, J. F., & Ansell, C. K. (1993). Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434. American Journal of Sociology, 98(6), 1259.

19. (SocialAction... in action.)

20. Some Networked Art Projects I'm Working On

21. Open Source Dance
http://www.slideshare.net/diegomaranan/open-source-dance-presentation/
Building dance communities through sharing Creative Commons-licensed choreography and tracking the
flow of choreographic ideas across dance communities

22. Independent Cinema Portal
http://www.slideshare.net/diegomaranan/proposal-for-a-portal-to-philippine-cinema-using-data-
visualization-techniques-presentation/
Facilitating insights into independent cinemas in the Philippines (but can be extended easily to cover
global cinemas) using data publicly available on the web and data visualization techniques

23. The Apology Project
http://sites.google.com/site/diegomarananprojects/todo/on-hold/The-Apology-Project
A Web 2.0 platform for public apologies

24. salamat