Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
    • Background
    • Government of Canada Kanishka Project
    • SecDev Kanishka Project
    • The SecDev Foundation
  • Methodologies
    • Event Detection
    • Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (ML/NLP)
    • Netnography
    • Predictive Analytics and Data Mining
    • Social Network Analysis (SNA)
    • “Crowd Sourced” Information
  • Interviews
  • Events
    • Women, Technology, Partnerships - Countering Terrorist use of the Internet
  • Other Resources
    • Against Violent Extremism (AVE)
    • Counterextremism.org Project
    • Extreme Dialogue
    • Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD)
    • Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies
    • The FREE Initiative
    • Technology Against Terrorism

Search form

Social Network Analysis (SNA)

You are here

Home » Methodologies » Social Network Analysis (SNA)

Social Network Analysis (SNA)

“Social Network Analysis” (SNA) is the application of network theory—a field which joins together sociological and mathematical disciplines—to analyze the structure of online social networks. Its aim is to analyze communities of interest in terms of the nature of social ties within that community. The underlying premise of SNA is that relationships within communities matter in influencing the beliefs, behaviours, and experiences of individuals within that community. In this respect, SNA can be used, for example, to monitor the spread of messages and the sharing of information within communities by modelling who is central, who is authoritative, who is talking to whom, and the nature of interactions between various “nodes” in a community.

SNA is an approach which can be applied to the counterterrorism context to model the relationships and interactions between various entities and/or accounts of interest. The strength of SNA as an analytical approach is that it can strengthen the efforts of intelligence and law enforcement officials map out links between suspected extremist entities and to provide a picture of the structure of a suspected extremist community.

Related Articles

"Social Media, Online Networks and the Prevention of Violent Extremism" KANISHKA Research and Lessons Learned. Summary Overview

In 2013, The SecDev Group undertook a 10-month Kanishka-funded project that set out, in part,  to explore methodologies and technologies for open source social media (OSSM) research and their potential utility for detecting weak signals of radicalization towards violent extremism online.

The SecDev Group
2014
Read More
#Greenbirds: Measuring Importance and Influence in Syrian Foreign Fighter Networks

This 2014 report by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR) presents the findings of a 12-month study on the social media profiles of 190 Western and European foreign fighters.

Joseph A. Carter, Shiraz Maher, Peter R. Neumann
2014
Read More
$1.00 per RT #BostonMarathon #PrayForBoston: Analyzing Fake Content on Twitter

This 2013 article analyzes content generated on Twitter during the attacks at the Boston Marathon in April 2013. The authors perform an in-depth characterization of what factors influenced malicious content and profiles becoming viral.

A Gupta; H Lamba; P Kumaraguru
2013
Read More
A Graph Based Clustering Scheme for Identifying Related Tags in Folksonomies

This paper focuses on social network analysis (SNA) for the purposes of community detection using a hybrid graph-based tag clustering scheme (HGC). The authors present a novel scheme for graph-based clustering with the goal of identifying groups of related tags in folksonomies.

S Papadopoulos, Y Kompatsiaris, A Vakali
January 2010
Read More
A Review of Facebook Research in the Social Sciences

This article deals with the rapidly growing body of research that has accompanied the meteoric rise of Facebook as social scientists assess the impact of Facebook on social life.

Robert E. Wilson, Samuel D. Gosling, Lindsay T. Graham
May 2012
Read More
An Analysis of Interactions Within and Between Extreme Right Communities in Social Media

This article studied a selection of right-wing extremist (RWE) groups on Twitter. The authors looked at particular language-based networks as case studies, collecting Twitter data for groups across eight countries.

Derek O’Callaghan, Derek Greene, Maura Conway, Joe Carthy, Padraig Cunningham
2012
Read More
An Estimation Method for Relationship Strength in Weighted Social Network Graphs

This 2014 article proposes an estimation method for relationship strength in weighted social network graphs. The authors argue that their method can fully estimate the relationship strength between any two users in a social network, whether they are directly connected or not.

Xiang Lin, Tao Shang, Jianwei Liu
March 2014
Read More
An Introduction to Social Network Theory

This paper focuses on network theory and Social Network Analysis (SNA). It clarifies the concept of a social network and helps identify the characteristic elements of social network theorizing.

Daniel S. Halgin
2012
Read More
Assessment of A Foreign Fighter’s Twitter Trajectory: Before and After Travel

This summary captures the main findings of a longitudinal content analysis of a known foreign fighter’s (FF) public social media activity for signs of radicalization toward violent extremism.

Ragheb Abdo, The SecDev Group
2014
Read More
Benchmarking Graph Databases on the Problem of Community Detection

This article is an update of the September 2014 conference presentation given at the 2014 Advances in Databases and Information Systems Conference (ADBIS 2014).  The article focuses on the detection of communities within Online Social Networks.

Sotirios Beis, Symeon Papadopolos, Yiannis Kompatsiaris
September 2014
Read More
Beyond Trending Topics: Real-World Event Identification on Twitter

This paper examines approaches for analyzing Twitter messages to distinguish between those covering real-world events and non-event messages. To validate this work the authors applied their process to 2.6 million Twitter messages.

Hila Becker, Mor Naaman and Luis Gravano
2011
Read More
Centrality Measure in Weighted Networks Based on an Amoeboid Algorithm

This 2012 article focuses on Social Network Analysis (SNA) and particularly the challenge of identifying central nodes within a given social network. The authors propose a new centrality measure for weighted networks based on the amoeboid algorithm, which is called Physarum centrality.

Yajuan Zhang, Zili Zhang, Daijun Wei, Yong Deng
2012
Read More
Charting Out the Digital Ecosystem of Gangs in the U.S. and Mexico

This article is based on a research project conducted by the SecDev Group in collaboration with the U.S. National Institute for Justice (NIJ) in San Diego.

Julian Way and Robert Muggah
April 2016
Read More
Closeness Centrality In Networks With Disconnected Components

This 2010 post focuses on the distance between nodes within social networks and particularly those with disconnected components. Key node centrality is defined by the author as the inverse of farness, and in turn, the sum of distances to all other nodes within a given network structure.

Tore Opsahl
March 2010
Read More
Combining Social Network Analysis and Sentiment Analysis to Explore the Potential for Online Radicalization

This paper explores the use of crawling global social networking platforms to undercover previously unknown radicalized individuals. To prove the utility of this process the authors collect a YouTube dataset from a group that potentially has a radicalizing agenda.

Adam Bermingham, Maura Conway, Lisa McInerney, Neil O’Hare, and Alan F. Smeaton
2009
Read More
Community Detection in Social Media

This is a slideshow of the June 2011 lecture on the topic of community detection using graphs with a focus on Social Media applications.

Symeon Papadopopoulos
June 2011
Read More
Conducting Research on the Internet: Guidelines for Ethical Practice in Psychological Research Online

The British Psychological Society’s Guidelines for Ethical Practice in Psychological Research Online serves as a complement to existing ethical principles in the realm of Internet Mediated Research (IMR).

British Psychological Society
2007
Read More
Cooperative Game Theoretic Centrality Analysis of Terrorist Networks: The Cases of Jemaah Islamiyah and Al Qaeda

This 2013 paper introduces a methodology that incorporates information available on terrorist networks, into the analysis of social networks underlying terrorist groups.

R.H.A Lindelauf, H.J.M Hamers, and B.G.M Husslage
2013
Read More
Data Mining of Social Networks Represented as Graphs

This survey reviews the literature and concepts of the data mining of social networks, with special emphasis on their representation as a graph structure. The article is divided into two principal parts:

David F. Nettleton
2013
Read More
Demographics of Key Social Networking Platforms

This brief report is based on a September 2014 survey and includes statistical data on users of social media and networking platforms, comparing the years 2013 and 2014 for the differences in gender, age, race, education, wage, and demographic location (i.e. rural, suburban, urban).

Maeve Duggan, Nicole B. Ellison, Cliff Lampe, Amanda Lenheart, and Mary Madden
January 2015
Read More
Detecting Hidden Structure In Social Networks

This 2012 article focuses on the detection of hidden relationship structures in online social networks including the characteristics of relationship structures on Facebook. The authors argue that graphs fail to capture the finer qualities of online social network relationships.

Diana Cai and Tony Feng
2012
Read More
Detecting Online Extremist Networks Using Open Source Social Media: A Content-Centric Approach

This research note summarizes experimental research conducted by The SecDev Group in 2013, as part of a Public Safety Canada, Kanishka-funded project looking at social media analytics and the prevention of violent extremism.

The SecDev Group
2014
Read More
Detecting Toxic Content using Open Source Social Media: An Actor-Centric Approach

This experiment used the Twitter profile of a U.K. national, verified to be an active foreign fighter (FF) in the Syrian civil war, as the seed for constructing a network topology based on social media interactions.

The SecDev Group
2014
Read More
ESOMAR Guideline on Social Media Research

This document aims to provide guidance for the use of social media in market, social and opinion research.

ESOMAR
July 2011
Read More
Extreme Dialogue: Social media Target Audience Analysis and Impact Assessments in support of countering violent extremism. An abridged summary report of findings and lessons learned.
SecDev Foundation
2016
Read More
Gang Presence in Social Network Sites

This 2011 article provides an insightful look into the presence of gangs on social media and social networking websites.

David Décary-Hétu and Carlo Morselli
2011
Read More
How ISIS Uses Twitter: Analyze how ISIS fanboys have been using Twitter since 2015 Paris Attacks

This resource contains the description and data analysis from a research project conducted by Fifth Tribe into ISIS’s use of Twitter in the aftermath of the 2015 Paris Attacks.

Khuram Zaman
May 2016
Read More
How Jihadist Networks Maintain a Persistent Online Presence

The article examines the activity of the ‘media mujahedeen’ – the supporters of jihadist groups who disseminate propaganda content online.

Ali Fisher
2015
Read More
Infiltrating ‘The Dark Net,’ Where Criminals, Trolls And Extremists Reign

This article consists of an interview with one of the leading authors in social media research, Jamie Bartlett. The article provides an insightful and informative look at how the broader Internet is used by various groups.

Interview with Jamie Bartlett
June 2015
Read More
ISIS Has a Twitter Strategy and It Is Terrifying [Infographic]

This resource is an informative, visual and descriptive infographic by Fifth Tribe focused in ISIS’s use of Twitter. The infographic and descriptions in the article were written following the Paris attacks in November 2015.

Khuram Zaman
November 2015
Read More
Mapping Networks of Influence: Tracking Twitter Conversations Through Time and Space

This article attempts to understand how networks of influence are formed among Twitter users, and the relative influence of global news media organizations and information providers in the Twittersphere during such global news events.

Alistair Willis, Ali Fisher, and Ilia Lvov
May 2015
Read More
Measuring Relationship Strength In Online Social Networks Based On Users' Activities and Profile Information

This 2013 paper focuses on measuring relationship strength on Facebook based on user’s activities and profile information. The authors critique social network research focused on friendship networks.

E. Khadangi, A. Zarean, A. Bagheri, A.B. Iafarabadi
November 2013
Read More
Mining Communities and Their Relationships in Blogs: A Study of Online Hate Groups

This article outlines a semi-automated approach for analyzing the content and structure of online hate groups active on blogging platforms.

Michael Chau, Jennifer Xu
October 2006
Read More
Mining Communities of Bloggers: A Case Study on Cyber Hate

This article focuses on Data Mining and Social Network Analysis (SNA) amongst bloggers, and in particular the mining of racist groups and cyber hate communities in online blogging websites.

Jennifer Xu and Michael Chau
2006
Read More
Modeling Terrorist Networks - Complex Systems at the Mid-Range

This 2013 paper focuses on the modelling of terrorist networks online and addresses changes in technology and the associated creation of new security dynamics and threats.

Philip Vos Fellman and Roxana Wright
2013
Read More
Modelling Relationship Strength in Online Networks

The article aims to build an unsupervised model to estimate relationship strength based on profile similarity and interaction activity.

Rongjing Xiang, Jennifer Neville, Monica Rogati
2009
Read More
Network Vulnerabilities and Strategic Intelligence in Law Enforcement

This seminal 1991 article examines the strategic applications of network analysis methodologies for law enforcement.

Malcolm Sparrow
January 1991
Read More
New Terrorism and New Media

This short 2014 article discusses the turn to social media by Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, and particularly their presence on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites.

Gabriel Weimann
2014
Read More
Node Centrality in Weighted Networks: Generalizing Degree and Shortest Paths

This 2010 article focuses on Social Network Analysis (SNA) and proposes a new generation of node centrality measures for weighted networks. The authors do this by building on previous research, which uses weights to operationalize tie strength between nodes within networks.

Tore Opsahl, Filip Agnessens, John Skvoretz
April 2010
Read More
On Network Theory

This paper focuses on network theory and Social Network Analysis (SNA) and is a foundational piece. It clarifies the concept of a social network and helps identify the characteristic elements of social network theorizing.

Stephen P. Borgatti and Daniel S. Halgin
2011
Read More
Online Social Media in the Syria Conflict: Encompassing the Extremes and the In-Betweens

This 2014 paper utilizes a form of network representation that incorporates multiple data views to uncover and categorize networks of accounts that fall into four broadly defined groups in the Syrian conflict.

Derek O’Callaghan, Nico Prucha, Derek Greene, Maura Conway, Joe Carth and Padraig Cunningham
2014
Read More
Options and Strategies for Countering Online Radicalization in the United States

The purpose of this article is to inform the wider, academic debate about strategies and options for countering online radicalization within the U.S. domestic context.

Peter R. Neumann
2013
Read More
Predicting Opinion Leaders in Twitter Activism Networks: The Case of the Wisconsin Recall Election

This study employs content and network analysis techniques to explore the predictors of opinion leadership in a political activist network on Twitter. The results demonstrate the feasibility of using user-generated content to measure user characteristics.

Weiai Wayne Xu, Yoonmo Sang, Stacy Blasiola, Han Woo Park
December 2015
Read More
Predicting the Present with Google Trends

The authors of this 2011 article hypothesize that the results of Google Trends, given its daily and weekly reports on queries related to various industries may be correlated to the current level of economic activity in these industries.

Hyunyoung Choi and Hal Varian
December 2011
Read More
Preliminary Analytical Considerations in Designing a Terrorism and Extremism Online Network Extractor

This 2014 paper presents a web-crawler called the Terrorism and Extremism Network Extractor (TENE), designed to gather information about extremist activities on the Internet.

M Bouchard, K Joffres, R Frank
2014
Read More
Raising and Rising Voices in Social Media

This 2012 paper develops a novel methodology for modeling cyber-collective social networks (CSMs) from individual, community, and transnational perspectives. The authors do this by utilizing existing collective action theories and computational approaches for social network analysis.

Nitin Agarwal, Merlyna Lim, Rolf Wigand
2012
Read More
Rumor Cascades

This 2014 article focuses on Social Network Analysis (SNA) and in particular content propagation and dissemination on Facebook.

A Friggeri, L Adamic, D Eckles, J Cheng
2014
Read More
Rumors, False Flags, and Digital Vigilantes: Misinformation on Twitter after the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing

This article discusses how the Boston Marathon bombing story unfolded on every possible carrier of information available in the spring of 2013, including Twitter.

Kate Starbird, Jim Maddock, Mania Orand, Peg Achterman, and Robert M. Mason
2014
Read More
Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship

This article deals with how social network sites (SNSs) are increasingly attracting the attention of academic and industry researchers intrigued by their affordances and reach.

Danah M. Boyd, Nicole B. Ellison
2008
Read More
Solutions to Detect and Analyze Online Radicalization

This paper discusses automated methods for detecting online radicalization and radical communities on various platforms, from websites, to forums, to social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and others.

Denzil Correa and Ashish Sureka
2013
Read More
State of the Art 2015: a literature review of social media intelligence for counter-terrorism

This is a foundational report and a seminal work in the study of social media intelligence and open source research. The paper reviews 245 papers in a semi-systematic literature review of how information and insight can be drawn from open social media sources.

Jamie Bartlett and Louis Reynolds
September 2015
Read More
Studying Facebook via Data Extraction: The Netvizz Application

This 2013 paper describes Netvizz, a data collection and extraction application on Facebook that allows researchers to export data in standard file formats from different sections of the social networking platform.

B Rieder
2013
Read More
Syria’s Socially Mediated Civil War

This source criticizes videos, analysis, and commentary circulated throughout Western social media for its reliance on English-only sources on the Syrian Civil War, promoting a biased and often inaccurate perspective on the conflict.

Marc Lynch, Deen Freelon, and Sean Aday
January 2014
Read More
The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld

This book by Jamie Bartlett, one of the leading authors in social media research, is based on his work in uncovering the way that radical groups operate in the so-called “dark net”.

Jamie Bartlett
June 2015
Read More
The State of the Art: A Literature Review of Social Media Intelligence Capabilities for Counter-Terrorism

This article is a seminal piece and a foundational resource in the field of social media analytics and open source intelligence by some of the field’s leading authors.

Jamie Bartlett and Carl Miller
November 2013
Read More
The YouTube Jihadists: A Social Network Analysis of Al-Muhajiroun’s Propaganda Campaign

This journal article details the shift of al-Qaeda style propaganda operations from closed membership forums to mainstream social networking platforms.

Jytee Klausen, Eliane Tschaen Barbieri, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, and Aaron Y. Zelin
2012
Read More
Twitter and the #Ottawa Attacks

This article assesses the degree to which social media, but primarily Twitter, contributed to hysteric reactions surrounding the lone gunman during the 2014 shootings at Parliament Hill, Ottawa.

David Petrasek
November 2014
Read More
Using Social Media for Global Security

This 2013 book aims to inform government decision-makers, security analysts, and activists on how to use the social world to improve security locally, nationally, globally, and cost-effectively.

R Gupta, H Brooks
2013
Read More
What every jihadi in Syria needs: hair gel, an iPad, and Kit-Kats

This short news article in The Daily Telegraph discusses European and North American jihadis’ use of Twitter and social media in Syria.

Ruth Sherlock
2013
Read More
Who Matters Online: Measuring Influence, Evaluating Content and Countering Violent Extremism in Online Social Networks

This 2013 article focuses on identifying and measuring the influence of extremist accounts on Twitter, assessing extremist content, and determining ways to counter violent extremism (CVE) in online social networks.

J.M. Berger and Bill Strathearn
March 2013
Read More

Contact info

+1-613-755-4007 •  info@secdev.foundation

Copyright © 2014 - 2017 • The SecDev Foundation

  • Home
  • The SecDev Foundation