Social Network Analysis

Organization charts suggest that work and information flow in a hierarchy, but network mapping reveals they actually flow through a vast web of informal channels. Social network analysis involves the mapping and measuring of these normally invisible relationships between people, providing an organizational X-ray. What ties information, knowledge, management and social network analysis more closely together is the relationship between people and content. Nodes of a network show the relationships or flow between the workers of an organization. They work by using the concept of degrees (as in separation.) "Many nodes and links can fail but it still allows all the rest of the nodes and links to reach others through "other network paths," states Courtney. There are the many facets that make up the organizational network analysis, such as betweenness, closeness, and boundary spanners. They examine the position of an individual on the network map. Danielle thinks that "in the context of organizations a social network analysis can be vital to increasing the success of the communications relationship and productivity of an organization."

Like nodes the network centralization provides insight into the sturcture of the organization. The "senders" and "receivers" make up a traditional structure, were the lines of contact work up and down, it is difficult for messages to reach higher authority from the bottom. Whereas in a modern organization, communication is rapidly moving and changing. Technology has made it possible for the lines of talk to be more accesible by all; lack of communication is now easier to avoid.

The concepts of network analysis and socially orientated systems are far beyond the ordinary text-based chat. In fact, these concepts are critical to the creation of truly useful online communities. These innovations are lying all around us, from Google's Links to AOL's Buddy Lists to Amazon's circles of purchase.
We humans are very social animals. It's about time more of us started recognizing this in the systems we design.

Meaning is Found Where?

The meaning of a word, is only sometimes found in the actual word or within a persons own thoughts. The reason why this only works sometimes, is due to the subjectivity of both methods. A persons' thinking or understanding of a word may misinterpret the meaning; and in the American language it often happends that one word can have various meanings or definitions. A meaning of a word becomes more clear and relavant within the context of a network or source.

Nicole put it simply when she wrote "networks are what shapes the meaning behind a word instead of a word shaping a meaning and then delievering it into a network." Perhaps to understand this, we need to define what a network is. I liked Sarah's explaination that a network is an organization consisting of many different people with different experiences and background. This reflects the notion that one cannot assume, when speaking words, that the same meaning of a specific word is being referanced by everyone. When working or living in a specific network, people learn and use the language and meanings of the institution. This may also happen to an individual through ones personal biography and culture. Each different culture intails subcodes that are understood by the members of that culture. These subcodes define the meaning that relay the message.

Derrida teaches us that "binary pairs" help us draw lines around words and meanings that put them into categories. As helpful as his may sound this is also a problem. Languages are not so cut and dry as we may wish them to be. Meaning can be negotiated, but should it be? When two people communicate, they both want to be understood clearly, if any interferance can be avoided this is beneficial to both parties. Professors like Derrida, Shannon and Weaver have tried to eliminate the possiblities of miscommunication, so that people from different backgrounds or sources can effectivly communicate.
Check out Derrida the movie for a full understanding of this mans life and impact.

Shannon & Weaver Part II

Semiotics draws heavily on linguistic concepts, partly because of the influence of Saussure. Saussure referred to language (his model being speech) as 'the most important' of all systems of signs. Language is regarded closly as the most powerful communication system by far. It refers to a system of rules and conventions. Applying these notions to the semiotic system rather than simply to language, the distinctions are mostly between code and message, structure and event or system and actual usage. It can help us realize that information or meaning is not 'contained' in books, computers or audio-visual media. Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us - we actively create it according to complex codes of which we are normally unaware of. We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through these signs and codes into which they are organized. Through the study of semiotics we become aware that these signs that are normally transparent are able to be read. Danielle
along with Rosalyn agree that Saussaure's semantics help us to understand the study of human communication better. Get a better understanding through visiting Suassure's theory. criticism of the classical structuralist position of Ferdinand de Saussure. Roman Jakobson was a socio-linguist who thought that Saussure's insight concerning sounds had an arbitrary relation to meaning; meaning being determined by their relations with other sounds which differed, was an overstatement. A collection of sounds can function as the vehicle for meaning, but how exactly do the sounds perform this function? There is a relation between sound and meaning within a word, and within language generally. In the end this comes down to the problem of identifying language. Like any verbal sign, there are two components. The sign has two sides: the sound, on the one hand, and meaning, on the other.

Shannon & Weaver Model

The movement of information was once seen as the transport of goods or people, them came about the desire to increase the speed and effect of messages. The theory that messages could travel through space seemed ideal. Shannon & Weaver perfected this idea with a model of human communciation. As Gage notes people needed to learn how to become more effective communicators on both the sending and receiving side.

Writing always had to be transported to the reader, so in written communication the transport of letters, books and newspapers supported the thought of the transport of meaning from writer to reader. The engineers working for Bell Telephone Labs, reduced communication to a process of 'transmitting information' it identified various parts of the process. As Imbar, I too wonder how is it possible to put a mathematical equation to the English language. The transmission model clearly fixes and separates the roles of 'sender' and 'receiver'. But communication between two people involves simultaneous 'sending' and 'receiving' (not only talking, but also body language and so on). The communication model is set up as a linear, one-way model, ascribing a secondary role to the 'receiver', who is seen as absorbing information. But communication is not a one-way street. Although, the important point here is that, meaning-making is not central in transmission models.

It is widely assumed that meaning is contained in the 'message' rather than in its interpretation. But there is no single, fixed meaning in any message. In this model, even the nature of the content almost seems irrelevant. Transmission models of communication reduce human communication to the transmission of messages, whereas, a linguists say, that there is more to communication than this. People who study language, believe in phatic communication, which is a way of maintaining relationships. Some will also argue the chain model implies a commonsense understanding of communication in general, but also for specific forms of communication such as speaking and listening, writing and reading, watching television and so on. In education, it represents a similar model of teaching and learning. It reflects the notion that meanings exist and are awaiting to be decoded by the receiver. This may sound true, but it still has a mechanical quality about it that reminds me if an instruction manual diagram, that teaches me what part goes where. In all these contexts, such a model underestimates the creativity of the act of interpretation.

However, you will find no single, widely-accepted constructivist model of communication in a form like that of Shannon and Weaver's block and arrow diagram. This is partly because those who approach communication from the constructivist perspective often attempt to produce a formal model of communication. The message here is that, it is up to ones interpretation whether Shannon and Weaver's model has a much wider application to human communication than a purely technical one.