A Társadalomtudományi Kutatóközpont (MTA Kiváló Kutatóhely) 

Szociológiai Intézete tisztelettel meghívja az alábbi eseményére:

 

Yang-chih Fu: Contact Diaries: A Bottom-up Approach to Delineating Personal Networks

 

Időpont: 2023. szeptember 21., csütörtök 13:00 

Helyszín: Társadalomtudományi Kutatóközpontm Szociológiai Intézet 1097 Budapest Tóth Kálmán utca 4.;  B.1.15 tárgyaló

Előadó: Yang-chih Fu, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

 

Abstract

The boundaries and components of most personal networks change constantly. While conventional studies often explore personal networks from relationship- and acquaintanceship-based points of view, an alternative contact-based perspective could enrich our understanding of network structures and further capture network dynamics. In addition to relationship and acquaintance networks, studying contact networks is particularly revealing in the social media era as the emerging means of communication facilitates fleeting social interactions and breeds contingent social connections. Following such a contact perspective, a novel diary approach delineates personal networks over interactions (contacts) to distinguish the underlying nature of ties (edges) among actors (nodes). Although social media records also enable researchers to examine online interactions from the contact perspective, contact diaries remain an invaluable source as they make it possible to implement deliberate research designs that aim to obtain comprehensive information about personal networks. In this talk I will review the rationale behind the contact perspective, introduce the design of contact diaries, explain how recent diary studies can help strengthen sociological inquiries, and highlight how they contribute to the broader literature when using analogies and metaphors from other fields.

 

Bio

Yang-chih Fu is Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. As Co-PI and PI of the Taiwan Social Change Survey (1984- ) over the past two decades, he has participated in various modules of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) and co-founded the East Asian Social Survey (EASS). To complement survey and experiment approaches to personal network studies, he helped develop contact diary studies and has published on a variety of topics using diary data in Social Networks, Field Methods, Canadian Review of Sociology, PLoS ONE, BMJ Open, Scientific Reports and Journal of Medical Internet Research. He also co-edited The Sage Handbook of Survey Methodology and Social Capital and Its Institutional Contingency. Dr. Fu was co-awarded the Karl Polanyi Prize in 2017 for his work on comparative diary studies.