Hi! If you’re reading this page, welcome to my job talk’s annotated bibliography! I’ve collected some of the literature relvant to my work for you to peruse at your leisure, along with a brief summary of each article’s key takeaways.
| Citation | Slide Number | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Kossinets, Gueorgi, and Duncan J. Watts. “Origins of homophily in an evolving social network.” American Journal of Sociology 115, No. 2 (2009): 405-450. | TBD | Kossinets and Watts look at an evolving social network in a large university; they use email correspondence data to determine whether two individuals are linked. They’re interested in looking at the effects of induced homophily (I am like the people I’m connected to because the people I had the opportunity to connect with are similar to me) versus choice homophily (I am like the people I’m connected to because I choose to connect with people like me). Ultimately, they find that it’s complicated! Induced homophily and choice homophily interact with each other over time, amplifying each other’s effects and resulting in noticeable patterns of homophily. |
| Newman, Mark EJ, and Michelle Girvan. “Finding and evaluating community structure in networks.” Physical review E 69, no. 2 (2004): 026113. | TBD | This paper introduces the Girvan-Newman algorithm for community detection, but it also provides a useful overview of what communities are and how network scientists have tried to define communities analytically in the past. There are some limitations to Girvan and Newman’s approach to community detection, but this paper is a great gateway for thinking about community structure in networks. |
| Granovetter, Mark S. “The strength of weak ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78, No. 6 (1973): 1360-1380. | TBD | Granovetter contrasts between strong ties (ties within your immediate community that you probably call on often) and weak ties (ties that extend outside your community and are more peripheral in your life). He argues that weak ties provide access to novel information that might not be accessible within someone’s immediate community; having weak ties is advantageous. This large-scale study on LinkedIn confirmed Granovetter’s hypothesis. |
| Burt, Ronald S. “Structural holes and good ideas.” American Journal of Sociology 110, No. 2 (2004): 349-399. | TBD | Burt’s thesis is that people who bridge multiple communities – in his words, people who bridge structural holes between communities in networks – have more insights into other people’s ways of thinking. People who broker connections across structural holes drive innovation and gain status within their organizations. |
| Obstfeld, David. “Social networks, the tertius iungens orientation, and involvement in innovation.” Administrative science quarterly 50, no. 1 (2005): 100-130. | TBD | Obstfeld introduces the concept of the tertius iungens, which is Latin for “third who joins.” The tertius iungens might introduce two people they know separately, but do not yet know each other. They also might reintroduce people who already know each other by recontextualizing the relationship. Obstfeld argues that having employees who behave as tertius iungens brokers tends to drive innovation within firms. |
| Smith, Alyssa Hasegawa, Jon Green, Brooke Foucault Welles, and David Lazer. 2025. “Emergent Structures of Attention on Social Media Are Driven by Amplification and Triad Transitivity.” PNAS Nexus, April 1, pgaf106. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf106. | TBD | This is my favorite paper that I have written so far! We introduce the concept of the attention broker or tertius amplificans (“third who amplifies”). We provide empirical proof that there’s a causal relationship between amplification by an attention broker and their followers following the amplified account. In other words, although many Twitter/X bios say “RT != endorsement,” retweets are, in fact, taken as endorsement often enough that they affect how attention is structured online. |