Social‐network analysis

Definition
Social‐network analysis is

"the extraction of information from a variety of interconnecting units under the assumption that their relationships are important and that the units do not behave autonomously."

Overview
Social networks often emerge in an online context. The most obvious examples are dedicated online social media platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, which provide new access to social interaction by allowing users to connect directly with each other over the Internet to communicate and share information. Offline human social networks may also leave analyzable digital traces, such as in phone‐call metadata records that record which phones have exchanged calls or texts, and for how long. Analysis of social networks is increasingly enabled by the rising collection of digital data that links people together, especially when it is correlated to other data or metadata about the individual. Tools for such analysis are being developed and made available, motivated in part by the growing amount of social network content accessible through open application-programming interfaces to online social‐media platforms.

Source

 * "Overview" section: Big Data and Privacy: A Technological Perspective, at 28.