Making sense of social networks

Abstract

Social network analysis has emerged as a powerful method for understanding the importance of relationships among interacting units in a variety of domains. However, interactive exploration of social networks is challenging because: (1) it is difficult to comprehend the characteristics and structure of networks when there are many edges and nodes, and (2) current systems are often a medley of statistical methods and overwhelming visual output which leaves many analysts uncertain about how to explore in an orderly manner. This results in exploration that is largely opportunistic. The contributions of our work are principles and an interface to support systematic analysis of social networks. We believe our approach will enable users to better understand the structure of networks and the social groups within.