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

Eating Disorders In The Social Web: An Ego‐network Analysis ApproachTubaro, Paola; Casilli, Antonio; Fraïssé, Christèle; Masson, Estelle; Mounier, Lise; Rouchier, JulietteOnline Social NetworksData Collection, Ego‐centered Networks, Mental Health, Online Survey, Online Networks, Health advice networkTHURS.AM1The recent upsurge of online websites, blogs and forums advocating anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa (“pro‐ana” and “pro‐mia”) challenges healthpractitioners and policy makers. While glorifying eating disorders as a lifestyle and even a choice, the authors of these websites often provide fellow suffererswith distinctive forms of emotional and practical support, and may thus have appeal to many. The proposed paper presentation is part of a larger projectaddressing the role of online and offline social networks in the spread and maintenance of eating disorders, through a sociological comparative study of anamiasubjects in France and the United Kingdom. Emphasis is on the impact on health and nutrition of computer‐mediated communication networks relative toface‐to‐face social interactions. The paper focuses on the fieldwork methodology, dataset construction and preliminary results. An online survey, due to be inthe field shortly, invites users of ana‐mia websites to provide information on their online and offline personal networks as well as their health‐related advicenetwork, together with control questions on their eating behaviours, health status and IT usage. Network information is elicited through a computer‐basedparticipant‐aided sociogram drawing tool, through which respondents represent the entire set of their relationships to others as they see it, and obtain anoptimised visualisation at the end. The well‐acknowledged appeal of network visualisations is used here to improve survey experience and –indirectly‐ toenhance data quality. The survey is then followed by in‐depth interviews, to be held via computer‐assisted videoconference tools, to better understand thereasons underlying relational and health behaviours.Edge Discovery In A Large Social NetworkBlair, Jean R.; Horton, Steven B.Empirical Large‐N NetworksSUN.AM2We investigate the social network defined by records maintained by the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) on successful tournament play by ACBLmembers. Specifically, we consider the graph G = (V(G), E(G)) where the vertex set V(G) represents ACBL players who won masterpoints in certain bridgeevents, and the edge set E(G) represents partnership information implied in the records. Because the resulting graph is extremely large, smaller graphsrepresenting a portion of the data are considered. Once the implied partnership information is extracted from the records, the resulting graphs are analyzedby considering accepted social network analysis metrics. This talk will describe the raw data, discuss methods used to extract partnership information,describe the results of our analysis of the resulting graphs, and discuss areas for future research.