CAS Test 3

Graphing social networks: content and form

○ Content - is a type of tie, reason for a particular tie to occur ○ Form - is a property independent of content including intensity, frequency, etc. and direction (single, mutual) if any

Sampling for SNA: event based strategies

○ Draws network boundaries by including actors who participate in a defined set of activities occurring in specific places

Purposes for mixed methods: complementary

○ Enhancing or elaborating on the results of one method with another ○ Rather than trying to check on the results, we are trying to build

Analysing texts: subject position/identity

○ Identification of the 'speaking subject' and the intended audience and how it is addressed ○ (Self/other/we/them) ○ (local, national or global citizens, economic actors)

SNA: Actors and relations

• Actors may be individual natural persons or collectives such as informal groups and formal organisations • A relation is generally defined as a specific kind of contact, connection or tie between a pair of actors

Graphing social networks: modularity

○ Measures the extent to which a network is divided into clusters ○ Clusters have strong within them, but weak connections between ○ This network therefore has a high degree of modularity

Sampling for SNA: relational

○ Mimic an approach of snowball sampling

Mixed methods sampling: basic

○ Mimics probability sampling in some ways ○ Representative sample of the population, but not fully representative ○ Divide the group interested in, into segments or strata ○ Sample participants from each segment or strata

What is a social network

• "The term network refers to a group of individuals who are inked together by one or more social relationships, thus forming a social network."

Reasons for mixed methods

• All singular methods have limitations or flaws • Qualitative and quantitative methods are good at accessing certain types of data or answering certain questions but not others • Combining methods in a pragmatic way can fill in some of the gaps and provide multiple perspectives on a single question • Fosters interdisciplinary research • In a sequential quantitative -> qualitative design, quantitative research can help to guide the selection of cases in qualitative small studies • Results from qualitative interviews can help to identify unobserved heterogeneity in quantitative data as well as previously unknown explaining variables and mis specified models • Results from the qualitative part of mixed methods design can help to understand previously incomprehensible statistical findings • Qualitative research can help to discover a lack of validity of quantitative measurement operations and instruments • Quantitative studies can help to corroborate findings from a qualitative or transfer these findings to other domains

Qualitative methods

• Based on different sets of assumptions • Operationalised in terms of interpreting and understanding cases/subjects • Does not purport causation. Interested in ways of knowing, understanding, investigating, patterns, meaning, etc.

Foucauldian-inspired analysis: regimes of truth

• Discourse plays a pivotal role in establishing regimes of truth ○ Regimes of truth are the basis from which we assert our understandings of the social world

Critical discourse

• Emphasises the importance of ideology and the discursive strategies that are employed by actors to shape political outcomes

Types of foucauldian-inspired analysis

• Foucauldian-inspired analysis concentrates on making the historical context in which the discourse is situated explicit • Changes in discourse are not viewed as a rational deliberative set of events, but rather as the outcome of power conflicts in which different groups vie to impose their agenda • Archaeological discourse analysis ○ Seeks to clarify the emergence of different paradigms or truth regimes • Genealogy ○ Seeks to highlight how different disciplinary discourses are superseded at certain historical junctures • Self-technology ○ Highlights the way in which new discursive practices are ordered • Dispositive analysis A complementary mode of analysis that seeks to reveal the logic of different practices, institutions and new technologies and how these combine

Foucauldian-inspired analysis

• Foucault's key argument is that discourses are contested, and that the key task is to identify how discourses exemplify conflicts over meaning that are linked to power

Induction and deduction

• Induction: begin with observations and build theories • Deduction: hypothesis testing, identify theories and seek to test them through the collection of data

Common criticisms of discourse analysis

• It is bas science, unreliable, cannot be replicated, confirmed/falsified or validated • Can only answer 'how questions', not 'why questions'; cannot prove causal relations or produce law-like generalisations or make predictions about the future • Cannot provide an answer to whether particular policies or actions are driven by ideas/norms vs. material interests • Reduces the world to 'texts' and cannot account for the material world • Can only uncover the production of meaning, not the reception of meaning

What is social network analysis

• It is both a set of techniques and a broader approach to the study of human relationships • Seeks to describe and explore the patterns apparent in social relationships • A mostly quantitative method that is enhanced by qualitative context

Mixed methods: Integrated designs

• Iterative ○ Dynamic and ongoing interplay over time between the different methodologies associated with different paradigms • Embedded/nested ○ One methodology located within another, interlocking inquiry characteristics in a framework of creative tension • Holistic ○ Highlight the necessary interdependence of different methodologies for understanding complex phenomena fully • Transformative ○ Give primacy to the value-based and action-orientated dimensions of different inquiry traditions ○ Mix the value commitments of different traditions for better representation of multiple interests

Responses to criticisms of discourse analysis

• Most of these criticisms are misplaced ○ Discourse analysis is an interpretive or hermeneutic rather than explanatory form of inquiry ○ No discourse analysis theory or method can be right or wrong, just more or less illuminating/revealing • DA is a non-casual epistemology, it does not seek to generate falsifiable hypotheses about the relationship between dependent and independent variables • DA focuses on how meaning is produced and therefore gives ontological priority to language and meaning • A material world exists but it is always discursively mediated; it therefore makes no sense to test for the relative influence of ideas vs. interests since the meaning of both are constituted by discourse • DA can be complemented with reception studies (focus groups, public opinion polling, deliberative polling) and policy analysis '

Mixed methods sampling: Mixing mixed

○ When researchers mix the consequential strategy with multilevel strategy ○ Combine concurrent strategy with multilevel strategy

What is social network analysis: Freeman

○ It involves the intuition that links among social actors are important ○ It is based on the collection an analysis of data that record social relations that link actors ○ It draws heavily on graphic imagery to reveal and display the patterning of those inks and ○ It develops mathematical and computational models to describe and explain those patterns

Analysing texts: Narrative line

○ Looming tragedy or opportunity ○ Attribution of agency, allocation of blame and responsibility ○ Location of subjects in the narrative

General definition of mixed methods

○ Mixed methods research is the type of research in which a researcher or team of researchers combines elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches (e.g., use of qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection, analysis, inference techniques) for the broad purposes of breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration.

Sampling for SNA: Realist

○ Network analyst adopts perceptions of the actors themselves ○ We define the boundaries of analysis as the limits that are consciously experienced by all or most of the actors in the entity ○ Actors and relations are included or excluded to the point that actors in the network see them to be relevant

Analysing texts: key frames, arguments and persuasive devices or tropes

○ Reasons for acting, not acting ○ Use of tropes/devices ○ Metaphors, analogies, common word patterns ○ Arguments ○ Forms of knowledge/modes of constituting authority (science v folk wisdom)

Purposes for mixed methods: initiation and expansion

4. Initiation ○ Seek to contradict, problematise or recast findings of one method with another 5. Expansion ○ To broaden the scope of research by using different methods for different components ○ By using multiple methods we have a much broader study than we would have if we only used one

Floating/empty signifiers

A signifier of something good that is lacking in society but which has no fixed or clear content or referent; discourses seek to fix their meaning but they remain unstable and constantly shift over time

Difference between text, context and discourse

A text is a particular oral, written, visual or other sign system. A context is the relevant environment in which the text is produced or staged that is vital to the process of meaning making. Discourse transcends particular texts or passages and represents a stable structure or recurring pattern of meaning.

Texts, inter-textual relationships and genres

All texts are unique but meaning does not exclusively reside in any single text All texts are relationally situated and make explicit or implicit references to other texts Different genres of text constitute their authority, legitimacy or persuasive force in different ways

What is discourse

Discourse is language, or the practice of making meaning through the use of language. It transcends the literal meaning of the text. Discourse can be defined as language use and discourse analysis can be defined as the study of talk and text in context

Critical analysis: textual, discursive, social

Textual analysis § Examines vocabulary, grammar, cohesion and text structure § An reveal how alternative wordings have entered political language ○ Discursive practice § Requires the researcher to examine the strategic devices used by the author to reinforce argument ○ Social practice Analyses the discourse by making reference to the wider context and explicit theories of hegemony and power; in particular, the ideological components in texts are discussed within this wider frame

Aim of discourse analysis

The key aim is to provide a critical understanding of how language is deployed. It does this by making the social and political context in which texts are situated explicit.

Graphing social networks: Nodes

You, me, a group, an organisation, a hashtag a tweet, a concept, whatever 'thing' we identify as a unit of analysis for sampling

Advantages of triangulation

§ Allows researchers to be more confident in their results § It stimulates the development of creative ways of collecting data § It can lead to thicker, richer data § It can lead to the synthesis of integration of theories § It can uncover contradictions § By virtue of its comprehensiveness, it may serve as the litmus test for competing theories

The two key schools of discourse analysis: commonalities

- Both believe discourses are relational, constitutive and productive, as language produces and legitimises knowledge/power relations - Both believe discourses are multiple and unstable. They seek to fix and stabilise meaning but they are not fixed, they change - Both believe ideologies are typically opaque in the literal meaning of texts and therefore can only be revealed through deeper excavation of meaning

What kinds of data are used by social network analysis

- Relational data such as contacts, ties and connections rather than attitudes, opinions, behaviour, qualities and characteristics

Challenges associated with discourse analysis

- Selection of texts: Since any analysis entails the selection of texts and the exclusion of others, it is essential that researchers are open about the ways in which they choose material. Discourse analysis research is potentially always open to allegations of partiality or bias - Reductionism: Discourse analysis has been criticised as reducing all aspects of social life to language. Critics argue that, because its focus is primarily linguistic, it falls into the trap of entangling linguistic ideas and concepts with social and spatial practices. Social and spatial practices, however, have a material existence that is independent of their discursive element - Privileging of agency: Discourse analysis privileges individual actors and subjectivity and understates structural factors that arise from both institutional practices and economic inequalities In response to this criticism, discourse analysts contextualise individual agency by making clear the wider social and political milieu

Types of political texts

- Type one (official political texts such as speeches, press statements, policy documents, government reports) - Type two (professional texts such as science, economics, policy experts) - Type three (media such as newspapers, tv, radio, blogs) - Type four (popular culture such as film, literature, music, video games and social media)

The two key schools of discourse analysis: differences

- post structuralists believe there is no truth or objective reality outside discourse, only truth claims within discourses; at best we can offer new or different interpretations of such claims. There is no meaning beyond language - Critical discourse analysis believes that ideology works as a veil to mask the truth in the real world. It aims to tear away the veil and see the real social relations.

Difference between content analysis and discourse analysis

Content analysis is a tool to determine the existence, frequency or relationships of certain words, concepts or themes within texts or sets of texts Discourse analysis is a tool to uncover the constitutive role of representations expressed through language, in producing and legitimating identities, values, authoritative knowledge and social practices

Purposes for mixed methods: triangulation

Seeking corroboration of results from different methods

Theories of SNA: Social capital

§ Americans are no longer engaging in social networks in the way they used to § Traces the decline of things like bowling leagues, they are bowling alone Suggests that networks can be used by individuals to enhance social and economic opportunities - or their wellbeing more broadly

Theories of SNA: Actor-network

§ Paid attention to the use of technology § Nothing exists outside of networks of relationships, these are constantly shifting § Everything can be an important part of a network § Ideas, objects, cultural meanings, environmental conditions, so on and so forth § Not just individuals that act but networks that act □ It is people in cars that act in a traffic system, cars are just as essential to the network as the people □ Soldiers go to war with weapons, the concept of war is incomprehensible without reference to this network of soldiers, weapons and other actors

Theories of SNA: Network society

§ Societal, economic and political changes that have resulted from increasing flows of people, information and capital that are the marker of a globalising world § These phenomena are best seen through the prism of networks

timing, mix, weight: triangulation

§ Timing: Concurrent (quaantitative and qualitative at the same time ) § Mix: Merge the data during interpretation or analysis § Weighting: QUAN + QUAL

timing, mix, weight: exploratory

§ Timing: Sequential (qualitative followed by quantitative) § Mix: Connect the data between the two phases § Weighting: QUAL -> quan

timing, mix, weight: explanatory

§ Timing: Sequential (quantitative followed by qualitative) § Mix: Connect the data between the two phases § Weighting: QUAN -> qual

timing, mix, weight: embedded

§ Timing: concurrent and sequential § Mix: embed one type of data within a larger design using another type of data § Weighting QUAN (qual) or QUAL (quan

Quantitative methods

• Based on a positivist perspective • Operationalised in terms of independent and dependent variables • Concerned with a casual question • Proving causation is very hard

Limitations/criticisms of mixed methods

• Often lack of clear justification of use • Often lack of clear strategy of awareness of the dedicated mixed-methods literature • Inexpert usage of secondary methods • Sceptical ○ Possibly unresolvable tensions of epistemology/ontology § Difficult to bring unresolvable epistemological tensions together § Different traditions, different philosophical underpinnings ○ Category propagates an unhelpful divide between qualitative and quantitative methods and ignore that methods exist on a spectrum ○ Too much power to mixed-methods theorists who have no specific disciplinary knowledge

Analysing texts: Representational force

• Persuasion depends on argument and evidence; yet political actors more often seek to fix the mean • ing of reality in terms that are congenial to their self/identity, irrespective of evidence and without respect for differently situated others • A political discourse expresses representational force when it is organised in such a way that it threatens the audience with unthinkable harm to their ontological security unless they submit to the speaker's viewpoint

Types of discourse analysis in political science

• Policy frame analysis • Critical discourse analysis • Dramaturgical analysis • Argumentative discourse analysis • Genealogy

Elements of a discourse analysis research design

• Question/goal - what do you want to interpret/illuminate/unmask • Analytical focus - official or popular discourses? Hegemonic or counter-hegemonic/minority discourses? • What kind of approach and method? • Relevant data - what kind of texts? • Temporal and spatial horizons of analysis? • Number of texts/events to examine?

How to collect SNA data

• Surveys ○ Questions about social relations • Administrative or census data ○ Access information about large populations • Organising directories ○ Relationships between or within workplaces • Scraping online data ○ Sophisticated automated tools • Observations ○ Qualitative data ○ Participant observations in ethnography ○ Documents from textual sources • Documents/media

Advantages of discourse analysis

• The key advantage of discourse analysis is that it provides a useful tool for researchers interested in understanding the ways in which power is exercised in organisational and social settings • As shown in case study 12.1 and exercise 12.1, discourse analysis enables a close scrutiny of the ways in which texts are utilised to promote a specific ideological agenda. • Provide insights that aren't always discernible when using other methods • For social scientists, discourse analysis also offers a method of uncovering some of the ways in which people or groups (or 'actors' or 'agents', as they are often termed in discourse • In other words, all forms of social activity have a representation in discourse. For this reason, discourse analysis is often used to provide a political critique of different modes of government policy-making and organisational decision-making processes. analysis) seek to represent their actions in texts and language.

The analytical task in a discourse analysis

• To look for regularities in the discursive structure and identify the salient categories, articulations and arguments in the discourse based on an extensive reading of particular texts over a period of time • The characterisation of the particular discourse is validated when further reading of texts yields no change to the salient categories, articulation and arguments

Mixed methods: component designs

• Triangulation ○ Different methods are used to assess the same pohenomen towards convergence and increased validity • Complementary ○ One dominant method type is enhanced or clarified by results from another method type • Expansion ○ Inquiry paradigms frame different methods that are used for distinct inquiry components. The results being presented side-by-side

Mixed methods sampling: multilevel

○ Common when we have different units of analysis that are nested in one another ○ An organisation or company that have different levels and different sampling strategies at different levels

Graphing social networks: Ties, edg, arc, directed, weighted

○ Relationships between nodes/vertices ○ Edge - undirected connection ○ Arc - directed connection ○ Directed - the relationship goes in a particular direction ○ Weighted - perhaps they may display the measure of the strength of a relationship § Network of phone calls, number of calls made by two different people by weighted ties, +5 or how thick the line is

Theoretical perspective of SNA

○ Relationships between people are the primary componentso f the social world. ○ Understanding the patterns and regularities of these relations should be a key focus of social science ○ "Rests on the theoretical claim that outcomes are affected by a structure of relations among people: dependence among individuals. Once we adopt a network perspective, we suppose that individuals are connected and that individual outcomes are related'

Sampling for SNA: Nominalist

○ Researcher reaches network closure by imposing a conceptual framework they previously developed that serves an analytical or theoretical thing for a particular project ○ You build a sample from the theoretical proposal, nature of case or nature of research question

Three assumptions of SNA

○ Social relations are often more important for understanding behaviours and attitudes than attributes ○ Social networks affect beliefs, perceptions and behaviours through a variety of structural mechanisms that are socially constructed by relations among actors ○ Relations are not static but rather occur as part of a dynamic process that is not adequately explained by conventional social theory, nor do methods most often used by social scientists capture these dynamics

Critical discourse analytical frame: micro, meso, macro

○ The micro concerns evident in linguistics ○ The meso interpretation of the social production of texts ○ The macro analysis associated with social theory

Disadvantages of mixed methods

○ The need of the researcher to be proficient and competent in both qualitative and quantitative methods ○ The extensive data collection and the resources needed to undertake a mixed method study ○ The tendency to use the mixed methods label liberally to studies which only superficially mix methods

Mixed methods sampling: sequential

○ The sampling strategy that is used in the first strand would inform the methodology in the second strand ○ You may do quantitative research to begin with, results from that would inform whatever the strategy is going to be in the second

Sampling for SNA: positional

○ Uses specific attributes of actors ○ Job within a large organisation ○ Location within a large town

Mixed methods sampling: concurrent

○ Usually when engaging in process of triangulation ○ Probability sampling on the quantitative side and snowball for qualitative sampling ○ Using them both at once

Purposes for mixed methods: development

○ We are looking to use the results to inform the next strategy ○ Use results from one to develop another

Analysing texts: problem definition

○ What has gone wrong? What needs fixing?

Limitations of social networks

○ What if networks aren't as important § Why not test or develop other explanations using mixed-methods ○ What about the social construction of perceptions, beliefs and actions § Why not also try some focus groups, or discourse analysis H ○ Less adept at answering 'why is the network this way' § Use qualitative methods that are adept at 'why' questions ○ Big on data, little on theory § Engage with previous literature produced using alternative methods ○ Potential systematic biases in data sets § Triangulate using mixed methods ○ Heavy reliance on visualisation § Support with other forms of data

Why do social network analysis?

○ You want to study how the social environment affects individual outcomes -Tracking the spread of disease ○ You want to study the social processes that underpin and sustain the scoial system -How does race influence friendship groups within a community? ○ You want to study whether individuals in certain social positions have different individual outcomes -Are popular students more likely to be successful? ○ You want to study how individual outcomes and the social systems are intertwined? -Can outcomes be best explained by individual characteristics, broader social factors and structures or both? ○ You want to study how individuals affect social structure -Which teachers in a school would be best placed to do health promotion work ○ You want to study the global outcomes of the social system - What are the consequences of a particular social system? Are interventions possible?