The Oxford handbook of social networks

The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks gathers forty leading scholars in social networks who link the distinct practices of social network scholars in the social sciences. Each chapter provides a succinct background to, and future directions for, distinctive approaches to analyzing social networks--theoretical, methodological, or substantive. The Handbook serves as a resource for graduate students and faculty new to networks looking to learn new approaches, scholars interested in an overview of the field, and network analysts looking to expand their skills or substantive areas of research.

"Social networks fundamentally shape our lives. Networks channel the ways that information, emotions, and diseases flow through populations. Networks reflect differences in power and status in settings ranging from small peer groups to international relations across the globe. Network tools even provide insights into the ways that concepts, ideas and other socially generated contents shape culture and meaning. As such, the rich and diverse field of social network analysis has emerged as a central tool across the social sciences. This Handbook provides an overview of the theory, methods, and substantive contributions of this field. The thirty-three chapters move through the basics of social network analysis aimed at those seeking an introduction to advanced and novel approaches to modeling social networks statistically. The Handbook includes chapters on data collection and visualization, theoretical innovations, links between networks and computational social science, and how social network analysis has contributed substantively across numerous fields. As networks are everywhere in social life, the field is inherently interdisciplinary and this Handbook includes contributions from leading scholars in sociology, archaeology, economics, statistics, and information science among others"--