Welcome to ASNA 2010

Welcome to the 7^th conference on Applications of Social Network Analysis (ASNA 2010) at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich. ASNA 2010 is again hosted by the Institute for Environmental Decisions (IED), the Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (c2d) and the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich (IPMZ). The conference is generously supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and the VAUZ conference fund. We are proud to host three workshops, two keynotes by Thomas W. Valente and Frans N. Stokman, 28 full paper presentations and 38 standard presentations.

We are happy to welcome presenters and participants from all around the world, various scientific backgrounds and different career stages. Once again the program demonstrates the interdisciplinarity of our field and we are sure that every participant will be inspired by the work done in other fields. Some papers and presentations are available on the conference website (ww.asna.ch) and selected papers will be published in the peer reviewed journal Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences (Elsevier). Some of last year’s contributions are published in volume 4 of the journal and are freely available on the web (Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 4).

This year’s conference again offers various social events. We start the conference with informal events, a get together on Wednesday evening and of course you should not miss the conference dinner with a traditional Zurich dish (Thursday). We then close our conference with a farewell reception and a guided city tour through the heart of Zurich.

Thomas N. Friemel, Christian Hirschi, Karin Ingold & Uwe Serdült

ASNA 2010 organizing committee

Conference Theme: Dynamics of Social Networks

The 7th Conference on Applications of Social Network Analysis (ASNA) has the goal to assess the state of the field and discuss current developments and innovations in social network research. As for the previous years, ASNA 2010 will primarily provide an interdisciplinary venue with focus on applications of social network analysis. However, submissions on theoretical and methodological issues are also welcome. There are no limitations with respect of scientific disciplines and research questions. However, contributors are especially encouraged to address the conference topic of “dynamics of social networks”.

Social network analysis (SNA) suggests broadening the focus from individual actors to a set of actors and the relations among them. Hence, the characteristic paradigm of SNA is to include “the context” to understand phenomena’s in various scientific disciplines like sociology, political science, communication science, social psychology, anthropology, economics, biology, physics, and others. In recent years increasing awareness arises that “the context” also includes a temporal dimension. Hence, it is of interest whether and how the structure of a network is dependent on previous structures or which future dynamics can be assumed to happen based on a given network. Also most cross sectional research include implicit assumptions about dynamic processes of networks. Hence, contributors are encouraged to reflect on this issue even though they might not use longitudinal data.

Since the mid 1990ies both 2010 ASNA keynote speakers have contributed significantly to describe and understand dynamics of social networks. We invite people to reflect their work and discuss it throughout the venue.

ASNA Proceedings

ASNA 2009 (Journal by Elsevier): Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 4

ASNA 2007 (Book by VS): Why Context Matters

ASNA 2006 (Book by UVK): Applications of Social Network Analysis

ASNA 2005 (Book by wvb): Applications of Social Network Analysis