88-403 Network and Social Systems
9 units, Carnegie Mellon University
Modern societies are structured and highly connected systems. The necessity to cope with major phenomena like disease spread, terrorism, organized crime and financial crisis, requires understanding of the fundamental properties of complex social networks. In this course, we will first provide an overview of the theory of networks. We will then focus our attention on networks in social sciences and, in particular, on the nature of social links, as the perception of the nature of a social connection may be subjective to some extent. We will learn the basic structural and dynamical properties of networks, and how to apply these concepts to real social systems. We will investigate, starting from real data, the structure of several social networks including phone call and email networks, friendship networks, financial networks, trading networks, and crime networks. We will also explore the dynamics of processes occurring on networks, such as disease spread and market contagion, and macroscopic phenomena related to these processes, including information cascades and herding. Students will be expected to think critically about concepts, models and empirical evidences presented in class. They will also be expected to apply concepts and data analysis tools to real world networks.
Prerequisites: none listed
Courseweave needs JavaScript to show sections, workloads and planning tools.