Scrutinizing Relations that Shape Actions: Social Network Analysis

This chapter shows a step‐wise approach for a social network analysis study. It presents a case study that concerns the innovation network for Internet video in the Netherlands. The chapter introduces social network analysis as a tool to model and investigates the relations between actors and the way in which these relations structure and influence actor interactions. The main challenge in using this modeling approach is the collection of reliable data on the entire network. This can be quite time intensive if surveys are required, but more and more useful data are available through social media and the Internet. The visualization and analysis of social networks is supported by various software packages, both commercial and open source. This availability of supporting software illustrates the growing popularity of this approach for policy analysis and research.