1. Overview

In the broadest sense what I want to study and understand is how information events emerge, flow and influence people in social networks. More specifically, I am interested in viral information events that occur on digital media social networks, and how those events flow and influence people. Acquiring a deep understanding of this topic requires reading theories of how structure and agency work together to constitute technology, networks and information events, as well as theories concerning influence and networks. It also requires familiarity with current empirical work concerning network structures as factors in how information and influence flows in social networks and empirical work on digital media social networks. Lastly, to fully develop the deep understanding I seek, I will need to study methodology, because understanding how authors support their knowledge claims will allow me to critically asses those claims as well as design my own studies in the future.

To this end, I have developed three reading areas: theoretical, empirical, and methodology. Of necessity, there is a fair amount of overlap in these areas, for example, Activity Theory exists in both theory and methodology; the author Duncan Watts shows up in both empirical and theory; and a number of journal papers are listed in both the empirical and methodology areas. The remainder of this document will briefly discuss each of these areas, highlighting a few key authors in each.

2. Theory

Everything I wish to study happens on and in networks. And, while I am specifically interested in the social networks that emerge on digital media sites on the web, theories that deal with networks generally, as well as social networks specifically will be included (Benkler, Watts, Barabasi, Granovetter). The emergent quality of networks and information events will be covered by literature dealing with theories of technology and society. These include structuration (Giddens), Activity Theory (N&K), Actor Network Theory (Latour) and Sociotechnical perspective (Bijker). Finally, since I am interested in how information flowing in networks may be influential, I will include literature on influence (Katz, Lukes, Castells), as well the social context in which influence takes place (Giddens and Bourdieu, Lukes, Castells).

3. Empirical / Current

This body of literature is intended to cover current empirical work that focuses on information flows and influence in digital media social networks like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. To that end it includes studies on Blogs (Drezner & Farrell, Leskovec, Nahon & Hemsley, Wallsten), Facebook (boyd & Ellison), YouTube (Burgess & Green) and Twitter, as well as literature on word-of-mouth (Kozinets, Borwn & Reingen, Bampo), influence (Christakis & Fowler) and viral events (Boynton, Nahon & Hemsley). It also requires familiarity with current empirical work concerning network structures (Rogers, Burt, Watts, Adamic, Wellman) as factors in how information and influence flows in social networks (Watts, Leskovec, Adamic).

4. Methods

In order to support my future work, having a general understanding of the available methods is necessary. I believe that understanding virality will require both quantitative and qualitative methods. In terms of qualitative work, the literature will include social network analysis (Wasserman and Foust, Butts), diffusion modeling (Rodgers), as well as familiarity with other network modeling texts (Watts, Valente). Literature dealing with qualitative approaches will cover sociotechnical approaches (Bijker & Law), activity theory (Kaptelinin & Nardi).