Sosiaaliverkostoanalyysiä

Sosiaaliverkostoanalyysiä, often abbreviated SNA, is a research methodology used to study social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It maps and measures relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, computers, or other connected information or computational entities. The core idea of SNA is that it is often more useful to think about how people, groups, or organizations are connected to each other than to think about them in isolation.

In social network analysis, nodes represent individual actors or entities, and edges represent the relationships or connections between them. These relationships can be diverse, including friendships, professional collaborations, communication patterns, or financial transactions. The strength, direction, and type of these connections can be analyzed to reveal patterns and insights about the underlying social structure.

Key concepts in SNA include centrality measures, which identify the most influential or important actors within a network; brokerage, which describes actors who connect otherwise disconnected groups; and community detection, which aims to identify clusters or subgroups within the network. SNA can be applied across various fields, such as sociology, political science, anthropology, economics, and business, to understand phenomena like the spread of information, the formation of opinions, the dynamics of organizations, and the diffusion of innovations.