Balancing Systematic and Flexible Exploration of Social Networks

1. Balancing Systematic and Flexible Exploration of Social Networks PresentingSocialAction System Adam Perer and Ben Shneiderman Alaa Al-Makhzoomy Cleveland State University

2. While research should pay attention to . . . Social Network Visualization . . . Previously, in social research . . . Name Name Name Name Address Address Address Address Position Position Position Position College College College College email email email email Name Address Position College email

3. Why Visualization? A picture is worth a thousand words

4. Who is related to who? Can you still analyze this network? Who plays a key role in a specific group? How these entities are related? Is there any group of entities that can be put in one node?

5. Other Work . . . Approaches • Fisheye approach • Multiscale Graph Abstraction Software Tools GUESS NetLens TreePlus JUNG

6. SocialAction Statistics • A Social Network Analysis tool. • Uses attribute rankings and coordinated views to help analysts go beyond opportunistic discoveries. • Allows users to change measures rapidly. • Rankings are presented in an ordered list. • Visualized in colors. Visualization SocialAction

7. What if the network goes larger? • SocialAction allows users to aggregate nodes. What about different kinds of relationships? • SocialAction allows users to iterate between different kinds of relationships while maintaining the nodes layout. • SocialAction allows users to rank nodes by their structural position by choosing a ranking of interest from a drop-down menu: • Bary Center • Betweenness Centrality • Closeness Centrality • Cut-Points • Degree • HITs • Power Centrality

8. Ranking Social Networks

9. Figure on the left Ordered list of 97 nodes in the largest connected component of the terrorism network in 1996. The nodes are ranked according to their betweenness centrality. Figure in next slide Network visualization of the same 97 nodes, colored according to their ranking. The nodes with highest betweenness rankings, sometimes referred to as “gatekeepers”, are painted red.

11. The nodes that do not have a “betweenness centrality” ranking score of at least 1000 become faded and their labels are removed. • The labels of nodes that meet the ranking criteria can be increased by the user. • This allows users to focus on the type of nodes they are interested in without ignoring the overall structure.

12. Comparing Rankings With Scatter-plots

13. SocialAction allows users to rank nodes by two different features in a scatter-plot. The colors of nodes in the network visualization are determined by the scatter-plot position. This allows users to find nodes exhibiting characteristics they seek, as well as outliers. For instance, nodes with low degree but high betweenness centrality are colored bright green. These nodes can be quickly spotted even in the otherwise unkempt network visualization. Scatter-plot of 276 nodes

14. Network visualization’s nodes colored by scatter-plot position

15. Aggregate Rankings For Cohesive Subgroups

17. Multiplex Rankings

21. The overview matrix’s rows are the top 30 nodes with the highest degree (when all ties are present), sorted in descending order. • Each column represents a different type of link present. • For each cell, a greater intensity of red implies • relative higher degree, whereas greater intensity of green implies lower degree.

22. Implementation

23. Understanding the Global Jihad Terrorist Network

24. Understanding the Global Jihad Terrorist Network

25. Understanding the Global Jihad Terrorist Network

27. Questions