Sunbelt XXXI International Network for Social Network ... - INSNA

On Dopamine, Social Rewards And Formation Of Social NetworksTsvetovat, Maksim; Kabbani, NadineAgent‐Based Models and Multi‐Agent SystemsNetwork Dynamics, Agent Based Models, Network Plasticity, Social CognitionTHURS.PM2In human history, every culture has produced a set of rules governing social behavior, thus dictating a macro‐level social network structure. While these rulesdo differ from culture to culture, they produce remarkably similar macro‐level social networks, both on family‐ and small‐group level, but also on societal level.Examples of low‐level rules can be found in work of Granovetter(1983), diffusion models(Friedkin 1998, Carley 1999, etc), Burt (1992), etc., as well as socialpsychologicalliterature such as Simmel(1905) and Heider(1979). We hypothesize that a basic, low‐level set of rules of social behavior may be biologicallydictated via the the physiological properties of the human brain. This is based on the findings that most aspects of human (and animal) behaviorappear to be at least in part directly mediated by select processes of neurotransmission, including genetically defined individual expression ofneurotransmitters and neuropeptides within distinct brain regions (Schultz 2007). Further, Dunbar(2003) hints at these mechanisms by correlating size of socialgroups with size of prefrontal cortex in primates. We call this set of rules a Social Operating System of homo sapiens. In our work, we go down to the hardwareto explain social reward mechanisms behind triadic structures, information diffusion, and ultimately social network structure. We are building a first‐of‐a‐kindcomputational model of this operating system, and will demonstrate first modeling results.On‐line Communities As "issue Publics": Network Structure Of Interaction In LivejournalSemenov, AlexanderOnline Social NetworksBlog Networks, Russia, Social Networks Sites, Community, LiveJournal, Public sphereTHURS.AM1LiveJournal is the most popular blogging service in Russia Its influence is so high that many public discussions and political debates started here and causedsignificant resonance in mass media. However it is still unclear whether Internet and blogosphere can be accounted for Habermas's concept of public sphere.Habermas wrote that Internet would cause the split of global public sphere into small “issue publics” where people could discuss issues relevant to theirinterests exclusively. I deploy the concept of “issue public” to study online communities in LiveJournal. I demonstrate that formal “communities” of the latterserve mostly as indicators of taste, sources of news and so forth but not as “third places” of interaction. I redefine communities in LiveJournal in terms of theirinteractions around issues that shape “issue publics”. I specify 4 types of interaction: 1) befriending; 2) quoting/linking; 3) commenting; 4) posting. Each ofthem can be quantified and presented as a network. While the first one is the least informative (as the reason for befriending' is unknown for the observer),the analysis of comments' networks and map analysis (Carley) of postings can help to reveal the structure of “issue public” and its perspective towards anissue. To illustrate this approach I use the case study of the scandal at the department of Sociology, Moscow State University, which exploded in 2007 and wasmediated mostly through LiveJournal.