• Watts, Preface and Chapter 1. (Available from Canvas)
• Milgram, S. (1967). The small world problem. Psychology Today, 1:62-67. (Available from Canvas)
• Travers, J. and Milgram, S. (1969). An experimental study of the small world problem. Sociometry, 32(4):425-443.
• Kleinfeld, J.S. (2002). The small world problem. Society, 39(2):61-66.

More on the small world problem and some history (09/13/21)

• Granovetter, M. (2003). Ignorance, knowledge, and outcomes in a small world. Science, 301:773-774.
• Dodds, P.S., Muhamad, R., and Watts, D.J. (2003). An experimental study of search in a global social networks. Science, 301:827-829.
• Watts, Chapter 2. (Available from Canvas)
• Erdos-Reyni random graph animation by Uri Wilensky. (optional)

Understanding the small world phenomena (09/15/21)

• Watts, Chapter 3.
• Watts, D.J. and Strogatz, S.H. (1998). Collective dynamics of 'small-world' networks. Nature 393, 440-442.
• Victor, B. (2011). Scientific Communication As Sequential Art.
• Watts, D.J. (1999). Networks, dynamics, and the small world phenomenon. American Journal of Sociology, 105(2):493-527.

Degree distributions and power laws (09/20/21)

• Watts, Chapter 4, 101-114.
• Barabasi, A.L. and Bonabeau, E. (2003) Scale-free networks. Scientific American, 50-59. (Available from Canvas)
• Barabasi, A.L. and Albert, R. (1999) The emergence of scaling in random networks. Science, 286:509-512.
• Liljeros, F. et al. (2001). The web of human sexual contacts. Nature, 411:907-908 with comment and rejoinder.

Foci (09/22/21)

• Gladwell, M. (1999). Six degrees of Lois Weisberg. The New Yorker. (Available on Canvas)
• Watts, Chapter 4, 114-129. (Available on Canvas)
• Feld, S.L. (1981) The focused organization of social ties. American Journal of Sociology, 86(5):1015-1035.

Social search (09/27/21)

• Watts, Chapter 5.
• Lee, N.H. (1969). The Search for an Abortionist: Preface, Chapter 1, and Chapter 5. (Available from Canvas).

Spread of disease in networks (09/29/21)

• Watts, Chapter 6.
• Bearman, P.S., Moody, J.M., and Stovel, K. (2004). Chains of affection: The structure of adolescent romantic and sexual networks. American Journal of Sociology, 110(1):44-91.

The madness of crowds (10/04/21)

• Watts, Chapter 7.
• Asch, S.E. (1955). Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American, 193(5):31-35. (Available on Canvas)
• Easley D. and Kleinberg, J. (2010). Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Chapter 16 (Sec 16.1, 16.2, and 16.7).
• Tierney, J. (2007). Diet and fat: A severe case of mistaken consensus. New York Times.

Thresholds, cascades, and predictability (10/06/21)

• Gladwell, M. (1996). The tipping point. The New Yorker. (Available on Canvas)
• Watts, Chapter 8.
• Watts, D.J. (2002). A simple model of global cascades on random networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99:5766-5771.

Cascades and fads in cultural markets (10/11/21)

• Hedstrom, P. (2006). Experimental macro sociology: Predicting the next best seller. Science, 311:786-787.
• Salganik, M.J., Dodds, P.S., and Watts, D.J. (2006). Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. Science, 311:854-856.
• Salganik, M.J., and Watts, D.J. (2008). Leading the herd astray: Experimental study of self-fulfilling prophecies in an artificial cultural market. Social Psychology Quarterly, 71:338-355.

Midterm exam

• 60 minute midterm exam.

Fall break

• Have a safe and restful break.

Stength of weak ties (10/25/21)

• Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380.
• Smith, S. (2005). "Don't put my name on it": Social capital activation and job-finding assistance among the black urban poor. American Journal of Sociology, 111(1), 1-57.

Complex contagion (10/27/21)

• Gladwell, M. (2010). Small change: The revolution will not be tweeted. New Yorker.
• Centola, D. and Macy, M.W. (2007). Complex contagion and the weakness of long ties. American Journal of Sociology, 113(3):702-734.
• Centola, D. (2010). The spread of behavior in an online social network experiment. Science, 329(5996):1194-1197.

Experimental studies of contagion (11/01/21)

• Nickerson, D.W. (2008). Is voting contagious? Evidence from two field experiments. American Political Science Review, 102(1):49-57.
• Kramer, A.D.I. et al. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Going viral (11/03/21)

• Goel, S. et al. (2015). The structural virality of online diffusion. Management Science.
• Facebook Data Science (2014) Can cascades be predicted?
• Cheng et al. (2014) Can cascades be predicted? WWW.

Social media and individuals (11/08/21)

• Kross, E. et al. (2020). Social media and well-being: Pitfalls, progress, and next steps, Trends in Cognitive Science.
• Carey, B. (2019). This is your brain off Facebook New York Times.
• Allcott, H. et al. (2020). The welfare effects of social media. American Economic Review.
• Baym, N.K. et al. (2020). Mindfully scrolling: Rethinking Facebook after time deactived. Social Media + Society.

Social media and society (11/10/21)

• Crokett, M.J. (2017). Moral outrage in the digital age. Nature Human Behavior.
• Brady, W.J. et al. (2021). How social learning amplifies moral outrage expression in online social networks. Science Advances.
• Aral, S. (2018). How lies spread online. New York Times.
• Vosoughi, S. et al. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science.
• Lazer, D. (2015). The rise of the social algorithm. Science.
• Bakshy, E., Messing, S., and Adamic, L.A. (2015) Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook. Science.

Social ads in social media (11/15/21)

• Duhigg, C. (2012). How companies learn your secrets. New York Times.
• Goel, S. (2010). Birds of a feather shop together. Messy Matters blog.
• Goel, S. and Goldstein D.G. (2014). Predicting individual behavior with social networks. Marketing Science.
• Bakshy, E. et al. (2012). Social influence in social advertising: Evidence from field experiments. EC.

Fixing social media (11/17/21)

• Frank, R.H. (2021). The economic case for regulating social media. New York Times.
• Pennycook, G. and Rand, D. (2020). The right way to fight fake news. New York Times.
• Bail, C.A. et al. (2018). Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization. PNAS.
• Kaiser, B., Mayer, J. and Mattias, J.M. (2021). Warnings that work: Combating misinformation without deplatforming. Lawfare.
• Kaiser, B. et al. (2021). Adapting security warnings to counter online disinformation. 30th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 21).

Facebook files (11/22/21)

• The Journal podcast (2021). The Facebook Files, Part 1: The whitelist. (listen to just the first 4 minutes)
• The Journal podcast (2021). The Facebook Files, Part 2: We make body image issues worse.
• Wells, G. et al. (2021). Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show. Wall Street Journal.
• Author(s) unknown (2019). Teen mental health deep dive. Leaked slide deck.
• Raychoudhury, P. (2021). What Our Research Really Says About Teen Well-Being and Instagram. Facebook blog post
• Author(s) unknown (2019). Teen mental health deep dive. Leaked slide deck with Facebook annotations.
• Steinberg, L. (2021). Does Instagram Harm Girls? No One Actually Knows. New York Times.
• The Journal podcast (2021). The Facebook Files, Part 4: The outrage algorithm.
• Hagey, K. and Horwitz, J. (2021). Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place. It Got Angrier Instead. Wall Street Journal.
• Mac, R. (2021). Engagement ranking boost, M.S.I., and more. New York Times.
• Frances Haugen testimony before U.S. Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection. October 5, 2021.
• Mac, R. (2021). Key takeaways from Facebook’s whistle-blower hearing. New York Times.

Network scale-up method to study groups most at-risk for HIV (11/29/21)

• Feehan, D.M. and Salganik, M.J. (2016). Generalizing the Network Scale-up Method: A New Estimator for the Size of Hidden Populations. Sociological Methodology
• Feehan, D.M. et al. (2016). Quality vs. Quantity: A survey experiment to improve the network scale-up method. American Journal of Epidemiology 183(8): 747-757.

Who knows what about who? (12/01/21)

• Salganik, M.J. et al. (2011). The game of contacts: Estimating the social visibility of groups. Social Networks
• Cowan, S. (2014). Secrets and Misperceptions: The Creation of Self-Fulfilling Illusions. Sociological Science.

Choose your own adventure: Social networks and finding a job (12/06/21)

The topic for the final class was selected by students.

• Burke, M. et al. (2016). How strong and weak ties help you find a job. Facebook Research Blog
• Gee, L.K. et al. (2017). Social Networks and Labor Markets How Strong Ties Relate to Job Finding on Facebook's Social Network. Journal of Labor Economics 35(2): 485-518.
• Greenberg, J. and Fernandez, R.M. (2016). The Strength of Weak Ties in MBA Job Search: A Within-Person Test. Sociological Science.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.