Introduction:
In this interactive workshop you will learn how to apply various frameworks from network analysis to real life social situations. We will introduce some basic concepts from graph theory using Gephi visualisation software and will then move on to propose a sort of interactive game, which will help us observe how networks come together, how groups form, how influential members emerge, and much more.

Summary:
Network is a very useful framework for thinking about community. The people can be represented as the nodes, and their interactions as the connections between them. Once we start thinking about any community as a network, we can use various tools from graph theory to explore the groups that the community is made of, to find the most influential members, to expose the dynamic social processes that shape the structure of the community.

Most of the time, however, very abstract models are used to demonstrate the applications of network analysis to the social context. At very best we can visualize someone’s Facebook network, but the insights that we get from it cannot be tested here and now. That’s why we developed a set of exercises that can be performed in real social situations in order to bring the ideas from network analysis into our everyday interactions.

We will take the participants from explaining the basic concepts used in network analysis (with the help of network visualisation software Gephi), to bringing in some ideas into the space, so that we can “try out” some of these concepts live with each other and with the others who happen to be around. You definitely won’t see things the same way after the workshop, and we hope that it will be educating, engaging, and entertaining.

More on the methodology we’ll be using: read here.

Click here to RSVP and register

This workshop is a part of People in Beta festival.