2 Circles of Acquaintances from Nelson Rockefeller?
In Stanley Milgram’s “Small World Problem,” Milgram posits the question of how many acquaintance links are needed to connect any two random persons in the world? The mathematical structure in society is acknowledged, as well as social capital influences, as Milgram mentions the “problem of social structure.” (63) However I would have appreciated a discussion of a study that found the effect of taboos on certain exogenous behavior or institutionalized stigmas on certain “undesireable” networks such as crazy homeless people on social network linkages. Reading about the experiment kept me wondering if there would be any contemporary updates. How has this small-world approach evolved with the network changes explained by Barry Wellman last week? What if we replaced the handing of manila folders with e-mail?
I was also interested with the methodology of the small world experiments and what effects some tweaking would have on the relationship and network flow of information. Milgram explains that the initial folder holder gets “a certain amount of information” about the target person. (65) How do factors of this information like occupational prestige or economic capital of zip code affect the motivation of the initial mover to reach the target? If a working class plumber is given the first folder and sees the target is an attorney in Cambridge, does this affect the initial mover’s belief that he could ever reach the target? Milgram and Korte’s piece differentiates the success rates in reaching service and management professionals. (105) How does one's occupational prestige in a social structure affects one’s network affiliations and linkages? Milgram mentions certain decay in the number of active chains over each remove, but errs by not elaborating on this decay. How could manipulating the incentives such as adding a monetary component for successful target completion or making the message be hypothetically vitally important affect the network chains? Throughout this reading, I kept wondering if these findings could be applied to mating patterns and genetic evolution through network relationships.
In Milgram and Korte’s “Acquaintance Networks Between Racial Groups,” I thought that the finding that routes through occupational linkages were more efficient than residential linkages was pretty interesting. So we know more people through our function and integration into the economy than we do through the Gesellschaft “community” neighborhoods? A common assumption is that urbanization and industrialized capitalism created more anomie and reduced our relations to others to a strict economic exchange, but it seems this sphere is where we draw the most acquaintance networks. (102) Milgram and Korte discuss the “status descent” of the last link between final contact and target, indicating that the most efficient way to reach a target is to contact someone with high status and maximum surveillance of a specified domain.
“Killworth et al.’s “The Accuracy of Small World Chains in Social Networks” brings up the interesting point that small world choice in the field is frequently inefficient, with people making the incorrect choice for the next contact. This brings up the notion of differentiation of contacts, as seen in the Cathy comic strip in Freeman’s collection last week. Our network is not comprised of an assortment of equal, non-specified contacts, but differentiated between love interests, drinking buddies, and serious life advisors. Our choice as next contact is influenced by the specialized relationship between each contact and the actor. While the researchers call these inefficient flows “mistakes,” they act as if this is a controlled theoretical experiment, instead of the complicated socially divided reality we inhabit. (86) Just because you know someone who knows the target does not mean that you would tell them the embarrassing information or discuss the taboo subject. The nature of the message affects the contact route. Sexually transmitted diseases or diseases spread through commensality will reveal different affiliations than a random, rationally efficient network.
Gladwell’s “Six Degrees of Lois Weinberg” introduces some of the fundamentals of social network analysis in an enjoyable read about a female “connector” in Chicago. Gladwell writes that not all degrees in the six degrees of separation are equal, and highlights the crucial role of certain people that amass a large number of diverse contacts. This range and different sphere of interaction is critically important, as Granovetter finds in his study of finding a job. Gladwell’s stress on the heterogeneity of network contacts touches on Claude Fischer’s defense of community in diverse cities and cultural diffusion of subcultures. In applying this niche of social network analysis to affirmative action, Gladwell measures social capital by claiming that how poor one is can be determined by their longer paths to reach connectors like Weinberg. While Gladwell explains Weisberg’s and Horchow’s social connectedness as an “instinctual skill,” I would have liked for him to wonder what in return these connectors get from their behavior. Is there a sort of reinforced process, with each interaction of this type accumulating social capital?
Watts’ “The ‘New’ Science of Networks” was definitely a cumbersome read. Watts begins by summarizing previous findings that form a basis of social network analysis. He comments on the effect the structure of a network has on the collective dynamics of a system, postulating that “only a small amount of randomness was required for large, rapidly spreading epidemics to occur.” (246) This analogy to the spread of disease was brought up by Milgram in a previous reading and definitely interested me. This crucial and deleterious effect of randomness could also be applied to the flow in information or a dangerous idea, akin to launching a revolution or coup. The effect of interconnections between different racial, gender, and social class divisions proves the futility of the attempts at control of network affiliations necessary for total institutions like Communism.