Lectures content

Le1 - Thu Oct 5, 2023 Introduction to the course, What is social network analysis, What is a network, Examples of networks, Introducing the class, their own background and their expectation on the course

Le2 - Fri Oct 6, 2023 Social cognition and social network analytics, Networks of people, Psychometric network, Semantic networks, The process of a network project, Define problem and purpose, From questions to indicators: an example with #climatechange call for action discourse on Twitter

Le3 - Thu Oct 12, 2023 Networks as graphs; Directed and undirected networks; Examples; Weighted and signed graphs; The adjacency matrix: symmetries and conventions; Sparsity.

Le4 - Thu Oct 19, 2023  Building my personal network, Social capital, Entativity, Ostracism, Cohesion, Borokerage, Granovetter's weak tie theory, Weak ties, bridges, and structural holes, Efficient and effective networks. 

Le5 - Fri Oct 20, 2023 Brainstorming session on project topics and group forming. 

Le6 - Thu Oct 26, 2023 Bipartite graphs; Projections; Centrality measures; Degree for undirected and directed networks; Average degree; Authorities and hubs; Degree distribution.

Le7 - Fri Oct 27, 2023  Log-log plot of the degree distribution; Power-law and scale-free networks; Explaining poer-law with preferential attachment and attactiveness; Process of a SNA project; Selecting the data; Defining the network, network boundaries; Random sampling, reputational and positional/structural approaches.

Le9 - Fri Nov 3, 2023 Project ideas presentation: 7) Kardashian, 8) LoveYourSelf, 9) Abortion right; Literature search: how to theoretically ground your research ideas in scientifically sound evidence. Tools and methods to look for literature search using online sources from key work planning to content management: how to assess journal authority, how to select relevant manuscripts, how to evaluate the quality of papers; scholar.google.com and www.webofscience.com or www.scimagojr.com

Le10 - Thu Nov 9, 2023 Semantic networks; linguistic cues of psychological processes and inter group relations: focus on linguistic abstraction, generic masculine, derogatory labels and reappropriation, order and primacy effect; Issues about text retrieval, mining, and coding; Overview of properties coded with LIWC dictionary.

Le11 - Fri Nov 10, 2023 Project discussion with an emphasis on literature search: 1) Fast fashion fighters, 2) Israel war, 3) Wall-E, 4) Barbie, 5) Blacklivesmatter; 6) Kardashian.

Le12 - Thu Nov 16, 2023 Project discussion with an emphasis on literature search: 1) Bodyshaming fropm fashion industry; 2) Miquela AI popstar; 3) Revocation of abortion right; 4) Climatechange: activism or alarmism.

Le13 - Fri Nov 17, 2023 PageRank centrality: the random walk rationale; Teleportation; Pagerank versus degree; Examples; Local PageRank and topic specific PageRank; Examples of application.

Le14 - Thu Nov 23, 2023 Community and topic detection; Conceptual picture of a network and its relation to Granovetter's theory; The core-periphery model; Overlapping communities; The Louvain algorithm; BERTopic; Using community detection: Topics, topics interdependencies and socio-psychological description; Projection of markers: an example.

Le15 - Fri Nov 24, 2023 - 10:30 @ Aula magna, DEI, via Gradenigo 6/b  Presentation of interdisciplinary projects to engineers/data scientists 

10:30 LoveYourSelf: bodyshaming from fashion industry
10:35 Fast Fashion Fighters: Shein’s brand morality through the eyes of social media audiences
10:40 popsTar: Miquela AI popstar and emotional impact on her audience
10:45 Barbie: How has the Barbie Movie by Greta Gerwig influenced the discussion about feminism?
10:50 Abortion Right: revocation of Abortion Right in USA (2022) and reaction of the public opinion
10:55 PI: governments' stances versus public opinion on the Israel-Palestine conflict
11:00 Blacklivesmatter: a semantic analysis on victimization and majority member activism
11:05 Activism or Alarmism: mapping Climate Change discourse in social networks
11:10 Study abroad: push and pull factors investigated through social networks
11:15 Wall-E: ethical attitudes towards AI in dfferent countries
11:20 Conclusions
11:25 Event in memory of Giulia Cecchettin, with the Rector and many authorities, right outside the hall room

Le16 - Thu Nov 30, 2023 Social influence, contagion, homophily, and polarization; Le Bon's social contagion; Homophily in peoples' networks according to different behaviours: distinguishing homophily from contagion; Coviello's experiment on mood and weather as an example of contagion; Bond's example of contagion on elections through Facebook: a field experiment showing the power of small manipulation in the context of voting behaviors; Social contagion spreads faster across strong ties, with important consequences for the political involvement of crowds.

Le18 - Thu Dec 7, 2027 Feedback from IPs; Other centrality measures: betwenness, closeness, clustering coefficient; Wrap up on centrality measures. 

Le19 - Thu Dec 14, 2023 IP projects feedback on socio-psychological markers

Le20 - Fri Dec 15, 2023 Reddit Lab: how to scrape data from social networks by using R. by Bruno Gabriel Salvador Casara

Le21 - Thu Dec 21, 2023 Gephi Lab: how to give networks a graphical representation through the open-source software Gephi https://gephi.org/. by Lejla Dzanko

Le22 - Fri Dec 22, 2023 Polarisation, homophily, selective exposure; Echo chambers and filter bubbles; Examples. Sentiment analysys at a network and statistical level.