Laura Garton,
Caroline Haythornthwaite and Barry Wellman. In
Doing Internet Research, edited by Steve Jones. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage, 1999. Pp.
75-105.
ABSTRACT
When
a computer network connects people or organizations, it is a social network.
Yet the study of such computer-supported social networks has not received as
much attention as studies of human-computer interaction, online person-to-person
interaction, and computer-supported communication within small groups. We argue
the usefulness of a social network approach for the study of computer-mediated
communication. We review some basic concepts of social network analysis, describe
how to collect and analyze social network data, and demonstrate where social
network data can be, and have been, used to study computer-mediated communication.
Throughout, we show the utility of the social network approach for studying
computer-mediated communication, be it in computer-supported cooperative work,
in virtual community, or in more diffuse interactions over less bounded systems
such as the Internet.