Social Network

Introduction

Paths, trails and walks are sequences which describe the relationship between the various types of ties in a network. According to Borgatti, it is useful for us to differentiate paths, trails and walks because it corresponds to the different processes that we may want to model . This paper strives to illustrate the different types of sequence through the use of different real life examples.

Paths

A path refers to a sequence of adjacent nodes that never revisits a node.

This can be demonstrated through the sale of second-hand books. For instance, upon completion of the SOCG 304 Social Network module, I would wish to sell my “Analyzing Social Network” textbook to Sally who is taking this module in the next semester. I previously bought this book from a senior who had already completed the module before me.

This textbook would be considered to have followed a path. Since my senior and I have already completed the module, it is unlikely that we would need to purchase back the book. As shown in Diagram 1, actors such as Sally, my senior and I form the nodes and the transfer of the textbook (arrows) forms the edges.

Diagram 1: Passing down of text book

Trails

Next, a trail is a sequence of adjacent nodes that may revisit nodes. However, the edges may not be duplicated.

Trails can be found in Facebook contests where one needs to accumulate the most “likes” on perhaps a photo in order to win. For example, Alice decided to participate in a beauty pageant. In order to be crowned “Ms. Popularity”, she would need to accumulate the most likes on her pageant photo on Facebook. She asked her friends, Bob, Charlie and David to like and share her photo on their Facebook walls. Bob and David could share a mutual friend, Sally, who could have been approached by both Bob and David to like Alice’s photo. In such a scenario, Sally would receive the same message twice.

Diagram 2 below sketches