Social Networks & Communication Theory

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Abstractions about how people and messages connect across networks, spanning network-structure phenomena (homophily, six degrees of separation, decentralised systems), communication-theoretic models (the source-message-channel-receiver model, meta-communication, warranting theory), and mediated social dynamics (algorithmic radicalization, e-leadership, social penetration theory).

12 abstractions in this family — domain-specific abstractions that sit near one another in structural-signature space (k-means over structural-signature embeddings). Each is shown with its short description.

• Algorithmic radicalization — A contested sociotechnical mechanism in which engagement-optimized recommendation and feedback can repeatedly expose users to reinforcing or more extreme material, contributing to polarization or radicalization under specified user and platform conditions.
• Decentralised system — A system in which components use local information and interaction to coordinate behavior without one controlling center.
• E-leadership — Leadership as a technology-mediated social-influence process, coordinating goals, relationships, trust and performance when interaction is substantially conducted through information systems.
• Homophily — The tendency for social ties to occur more often between people or entities that are similar on relevant attributes.
• Law of the suppression of radical potential — The media-history proposition that established institutions constrain the growth and disruptive uses of newly realized communication technologies.
• Media multiplexity theory — A communication theory proposing that stronger social ties use more communication channels and that disruption of one channel affects ties according to their channel portfolio.
• Meta-communication — Communication that frames how another message, code or relationship is to be interpreted.
• P2PTV — A peer-to-peer distribution architecture in which participating viewers relay portions of live or near-live video streams to one another.
• Six degrees of separation — The small-world claim that arbitrary people in a large social network are connected by surprisingly short acquaintance chains, popularly summarized as at most six intermediating links.
• Social penetration theory — A relationship-development theory proposing that reciprocal self-disclosure tends to expand in breadth and depth as intimacy grows.
• Source–message–channel–receiver model of communication — A linear communication model describing how a source encodes a message, sends it through a channel and reaches a receiver who decodes it.
• Warranting theory — A theory that observers give greater credence to information about a person when the person has less ability to manipulate that information.