Disconnected, fragmented, or united? a trans-disciplinary review of network science
During decades the study of networks has been divided between the efforts of social scientists and natural scientists, two groups of scholars who often do not see eye to eye. In this review I present an effort to mutually translate the work conducted by scholars from both of these academic fronts ho...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer International Publishing
2016
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/104041 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6031-5982 |
| _version_ | 1826203673998393344 |
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| author | Hidalgo Ramaciotti, Cesar A. |
| author2 | Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) |
| author_facet | Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Hidalgo Ramaciotti, Cesar A. |
| author_sort | Hidalgo Ramaciotti, Cesar A. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | During decades the study of networks has been divided between the efforts of social scientists and natural scientists, two groups of scholars who often do not see eye to eye. In this review I present an effort to mutually translate the work conducted by scholars from both of these academic fronts hoping to continue to unify what has become a diverging body of literature. I argue that social and natural scientists fail to see eye to eye because they have diverging academic goals. Social scientists focus on explaining how context specific social and economic mechanisms drive the structure of networks and on how networks shape social and economic outcomes. By contrast, natural scientists focus primarily on modeling network characteristics that are independent of context, since their focus is to identify universal characteristics of systems instead of context specific mechanisms. In the following pages I discuss the differences between both of these literatures by summarizing the parallel theories advanced to explain link formation and the applications used by scholars in each field to justify their approach to network science. I conclude by providing an outlook on how these literatures can be further unified. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:41:16Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/104041 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:41:16Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Springer International Publishing |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1040412022-10-01T10:30:37Z Disconnected, fragmented, or united? a trans-disciplinary review of network science Hidalgo Ramaciotti, Cesar A. Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Hidalgo, Cesar A. During decades the study of networks has been divided between the efforts of social scientists and natural scientists, two groups of scholars who often do not see eye to eye. In this review I present an effort to mutually translate the work conducted by scholars from both of these academic fronts hoping to continue to unify what has become a diverging body of literature. I argue that social and natural scientists fail to see eye to eye because they have diverging academic goals. Social scientists focus on explaining how context specific social and economic mechanisms drive the structure of networks and on how networks shape social and economic outcomes. By contrast, natural scientists focus primarily on modeling network characteristics that are independent of context, since their focus is to identify universal characteristics of systems instead of context specific mechanisms. In the following pages I discuss the differences between both of these literatures by summarizing the parallel theories advanced to explain link formation and the applications used by scholars in each field to justify their approach to network science. I conclude by providing an outlook on how these literatures can be further unified. 2016-08-26T17:29:47Z 2016-08-26T17:29:47Z 2016-07 2016-03 2016-08-03T08:10:16Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2364-8228 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/104041 Hidalgo, César A. “Disconnected, Fragmented, or United? A Trans-Disciplinary Review of Network Science.” Applied Network Science 1.1 (2016): https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6031-5982 en http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s41109-016-0010-3 Applied Network Science Creative Commons Attribution http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Author(s) application/pdf Springer International Publishing Springer International Publishing |
| spellingShingle | Hidalgo Ramaciotti, Cesar A. Disconnected, fragmented, or united? a trans-disciplinary review of network science |
| title | Disconnected, fragmented, or united? a trans-disciplinary review of network science |
| title_full | Disconnected, fragmented, or united? a trans-disciplinary review of network science |
| title_fullStr | Disconnected, fragmented, or united? a trans-disciplinary review of network science |
| title_full_unstemmed | Disconnected, fragmented, or united? a trans-disciplinary review of network science |
| title_short | Disconnected, fragmented, or united? a trans-disciplinary review of network science |
| title_sort | disconnected fragmented or united a trans disciplinary review of network science |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/104041 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6031-5982 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT hidalgoramaciotticesara disconnectedfragmentedorunitedatransdisciplinaryreviewofnetworkscience |