"Are
Personal Communities Local? A Dumptarian Reconsideration"
Barry Wellman. Social
Networks 18, 3 (Sept., 1996): 347-354.
ABSTRACT
Are local ties important
in personal community networks? Since local ties only make up a minority of people's
active ties, network analysts have argued for decades that they neighborhood is
not very important. Re-analysis of the Toronto data shows that when contacts become
the unit of analysis instead of ties, the percentage of local relationships in
active networks nearly doubles. Moreover, when we also take into account active
contacts with coworkers, who like neighbors are physically proximate, we find
that two-thirds of all contacts are 'local'. As Humpty-Dumpty has cogently reminded
us, a network can be anything we want it to be. It depends on how we define it.
When we change the definition, the conclusions change too.