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AbstractThe analysis of multilayer networks is among the most active areas of network science, and there are several methods to detect dense "communities" of nodes in multilayer networks. One way to define a community is as a set of nodes that trap a diffusion-like dynamical process (usually a random walk) for a long time. In this view, communities are sets of nodes that create bottlenecks to the spreading of a dynamical process on a network. We analyze the local behavior of different random walks on multiplex networks (which are multilayer networks in which different layers correspond to different types of edges) and show that they have very different bottlenecks, which correspond to rather different notions of what it means for a set of nodes to be a good community. This has direct implications for the behavior of community-detection methods that are based on these random walks.

Community Practice in the Network Society looks at the broad context in which this is happening, presents case studies of local projects from around the world, and discusses community ICT research methodologies.

AbstractIn this paper, we develop a formal framework for what a good community should look like and how strong a community is (community strength). One of the key innovations is to incorporate the concept of relative centrality into structural analysis of networks. In our framework, relative centrality is a measure that measures how important a set of nodes in a network is with respect to another set of nodes, and it is a generalization of centrality. Building on top of relative centrality, the community strength for a set of nodes is measured by the difference between its relative centrality with respect to itself and its centrality. A community is then a set of nodes with a nonnegative community strength. We show that our community strength is related to conductance that is commonly used for measuring the strength of a small community. We define the modularity for a partition of a network as the average community strength for a randomly selected node. Such a definition generalizes the original Newman's modularity and recovers the stability in as special cases. For the local community detection problem, we also develop efficient agglomerative algorithms that guarantee the community strength of the detected local community.

This paper examines features common to both policy analyses and community-power studies, focusing on the conceptualization of power, the boundary specification of the system, the content of relationships and the effects of institutional frameworks. Two community studies, `Altneustadt' and `Towertown', provide the empirical basis. The effects of the institutional frameworks on policy-domain networks and the relation between policy-domain networks and policy networks are analyzed empirically, with information relationships as the most important content of the networks. With regard to boundary specification, actors in issue-specific networks differ from the discussion partners of actors within the social system, depending on the phase in the political process. Both pluralistic approaches and structural aspects of the policy domains are analyzed. In theory, the different institutional conditions in the German and American communities lead one to expect differences that can, in fact, be demonstrated empirically.

The goal of this deliverable on Community Networks and Political Advocacy is the identification of how Community Networks (CNs) gain leverage on regulators and policy-makers: What are the appropriate organizational modes to engage in political advocacy in order to foster the growth of community networks as cooperative plat-forms? What are the successful mediation of their interactions with other actors in the telecom sector and the local, national and European policy environments? In short, how can a CN build political advocacy capacities? With "advocacy capacity-building" we identify the process by which CNs can upgrade the collective skills on which they rely to influence policy development, but also to develop and upgrade the procedures and organizational designs devoted to these activities.

The goal of this deliverable on Community Networks and Political Advocacy is the identification of how Community Networks (CNs) gain leverage on regulators and policy-makers: What are the appropriate organizational modes to engage in political advocacy in order to foster the growth of community networks as cooperative plat-forms? What are the successful mediation of their interactions with other actors in the telecom sector and the local, national and European policy environments? In short, how can a CN build political advocacy capacities? With "advocacy capacity-building" we identify the process by which CNs can upgrade the collective skills on which they rely to influence policy development, but also to develop and upgrade the procedures and organizational designs devoted to these activities.