A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations) and a set of the dyadic
ties between these actors. The social network perspective provides a
set of methods for analyzing the structure of whole social entities as
well as a variety of theories explaining the patterns observed in these
structures.[1] The study of these structures uses social network analysis to identify local and global patterns, locate influential entities, and examine network dynamics.
Social networks and the analysis of them is an inherently interdisciplinary academic field which emerged from social psychology, sociology, statistics, and graph theory. Georg Simmel authored early structural theories in sociology emphasizing the dynamics of triads and "web of group affiliations."[2] Jacob Moreno is credited with developing the first sociograms
in the 1930s to study interpersonal relationships. These approaches
were mathematically formalized in the 1950s and theories and methods of
social networks became pervasive in the social and behavioral sciences
by the 1980s.[1][3] Social network analysis
is now one of the major paradigms in contemporary sociology, and is
also employed in a number of other social and formal sciences. Together
with other complex networks, it forms part of the nascent field of network science.
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