I really genuinely enjoyed reading Kieran Healy’s “Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere” this week. However, because the network being analyzed was active centuries ago and has already been documented to such a great degree, it would have been easy to dismiss Healy’s application of social network analysis as not especially relevant or groundbreaking. I found that using the narrative of the American Revolution was a very creative way to introduce the concept of social network analysis and create an analogy for current policies regarding metadata use. Although the story of the “Royal Security Agency” keeping an eye on the patriots was used as a framing device for an explanation of social network analysis, the story was interspersed with several tongue-in-cheek references to our own security agencies’ use of “metadata” to track “terrorists,” demonstrating the power of social network analysis and its potential use in the modern world.
I found another article about the application of social network analysis that might be helpful if anyone didn’t pick up on some of Healy’s allusions. “Life in the Network: the Coming Age of Computational Science” argues that because of the amount of data we generate over the course of the day, it would not be very difficult to get a comprehensive picture of our lives given access to said data. Social network analysis, or computational social science, occurs on a grand scale at large companies and government agencies, but the authors of “Life in the Network” maintain that even if computational social science were to be adapted to fit a model focused on academia, it would not offer the general public any more access to knowledge.
There appear to be many issues associated with social network analysis, especially regarding privacy concerns, which can be seen as either an obstacle in the advancement of computational social science or an argument against the practice of social network analysis. The article provides several examples of data collection in the area of computational social science, like the examination of group interactions through email data and the use of GPS to track movement, and offers ideas as to the questions such studies could address. The data that is involved in those studies is considered “self-reported.” However, because data is now generated at such an overwhelming rate and in so many different ways, it does seem possible that plenty of data is being collected and analyzed without us being entirely aware.