- Paperback: 430 pages
- Publisher: OUP USA (15 May 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0195160371
- ISBN-13: 978-0195160376
- Product Dimensions: 23.7 x 15.4 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 487,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Theories of Communication Networks
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
To date, most network research contains one or more of five major problems. First, it tends to be atheoretical, ignoring the various social theories that contain network implications. Second, it explores single levels of analysis rather than the multiple levels out of which most networks are comprised. Third, network analysis has employed very little the insights from contemporary complex systems analysis and computer simulations. Foruth, it typically uses descriptive rather than inferential statistics, thus robbing it of the ability to make claims about the larger universe of networks. Finally, almost all the research is static and cross-sectional rather than dynamic. Theories of Communication Networks presents solutions to all five problems. The authors develop a multitheoretical model that relates different social science theories with different network properties. This model is multilevel, providing a network decomposition that applies the various social theories to all network levels: individuals, dyads, triples, groups, and the entire network. The book then establishes a model from the perspective of complex adaptive systems and demonstrates how to use Blanche, an agent-based network computer simulation environment, to generate and test network theories and hypotheses. It presents recent developments in network statistical anlysis, the p* family, which provides a basis for valid multilevel statistical inferences regarding networks. Finally, it shows how to relate communication networks to other networks, thus providing the basis in conjunction with computer simulations to study the emergence of dynamic organizational networks.
About the Author
Peter R. Monge is at University of Southern California. Noshir Contractor is at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Communication networks are the patterns of contact that are created by the flow of messages among communicators through time and space. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Communication networks are the patterns of contact that are created by the flow of messages among communicators through time and space. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book really does three things. Firstly, it provides a critique of a lot of social network research. Essentially the research is not theoretically driven and fails to recognize that networks can be analysed at different levels - for instance in terms of individual nodes, in terms of dyads or triads or at a global level. Researchers need to do a better job of sorting out what their level of analysis is and which theories are actually applicable to this level. Secondly, it provides a 150 page review of the different theoretical approaches to social networks. Thirdly, the book advocates the employment of agent based modelling to understand the development of networks. Researchers can specify a set of agents and rules about how they can interact and then run simulations to see how the network would develop. They provide an introduction to software that allows you to do this. This third strand of the book sometimes gets in the way of the other two. Despite this reservation the book does a good job of sorting out some of the complexities that anyone coming to social network research is going to discover in the literature. The book also provides an introduction to social network concepts and terminology although it is probably too brief for the complete beginner.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Must read
29 May 2003
Format:Paperback
I think is is a very good book and very effectively highlights the various socio-coginitve issues that are prevalent in communications. The theories could be applied to form new networks or to improve the strength of existing networks. The most prominent feature of the book is that it convincingly draws relationship between diffrent types of theories present in other disciplines ranging from Complexity theory to chaos theory. I wish the book had more illustrations and graphical examples. The format of the book is monotonous. But overall it certainly deserves 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Good literature overview
24 Feb 2006
Format:Paperback
This book is a good description of various approaches to the wide topic of social network-related theories (not social network theories as in SNA).
All chapters (except the last) are a reasonable, literature-rich investigations drawing on different theoretical perspectives of "communication networks". The last chapter is where the authors try to put everyting together, and in my opinion partially fail in doing so. Conclusion is correct and intuitive, yet somehow trivial: thinking about communication networks requires multilevel and multitheoretical approach.
On the pros side: rich literature review, many sources cited. The content is dense.
All chapters (except the last) are a reasonable, literature-rich investigations drawing on different theoretical perspectives of "communication networks". The last chapter is where the authors try to put everyting together, and in my opinion partially fail in doing so. Conclusion is correct and intuitive, yet somehow trivial: thinking about communication networks requires multilevel and multitheoretical approach.
On the pros side: rich literature review, many sources cited. The content is dense.
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful
THIS BOOK IS THE GOLD STANDARD...
12 April 2003
Format:Paperback
to which all other books written about network communications should be measured. Incredibly intelligent, thoroughly engagaging, this reader picked up this book out of curiosity, and was completely in awe of the complexity of networking. This book does a beautiful job of combining inferential statistics with dynamic theory. You will not want to put this down; this reader called in sick to work in order to finish the book. If you are going to own one book about networking, it should be this book. Seriously.
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