5.S: Using Matrices to Represent Social Relations (Summary)

Matrices are collections of elements into rows and columns. They are often used in network analysis to represent the adjacency of each actor to each other actor in a network. An adjacency matrix is a square actor-by-actor (i=j) matrix where the presence of pair wise ties are recorded as elements. The main diagonal, or "self-tie" of an adjacency matrix is often ignored in network analysis.

Sociograms, or graphs of networks can be represented in matrix form, and mathematical operations can then be performed to summarize the information in the graph. Vector operations, blocking and partitioning, and matrix mathematics (inverses, transposes, addition, subtraction, multiplication and Boolean multiplication), are mathematical operations that are sometimes helpful to let us see certain things about the patterns of ties in social networks.

Social network data are often multiplex (i.e. there are multiple kinds of ties among the actors). Such data are represented as a series of matrices of the same dimension with the actors in the same position in each matrix. Many of the same tools that we can use for working with a single matrix (matrix addition and correlation, blocking, etc.) Are helpful for trying to summarize and see the patterns in multiplex data.

Once a pattern of social relations or ties among a set of actors has been represented in a formal way (graphs or matrices), we can define some important ideas about social structure in quite precise ways using mathematics for the definitions. In the remainder of the book, we will look at how social network analysts have formally translated some of the core concepts that social scientists use to describe social structures.