Book contents
- Personal Networks
- Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences
- Personal Networks
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- I Background
- II Early Foundations
- III Later Foundations
- 8 From Claude S. Fischer, To Dwell among Friends
- From the Northern California Community Study, 1977–1978, to the University of California, Berkeley, Social Networks Project, 2015–2020
- 9 From Mark S. Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties”
- Strength of Weak Ties in the Labor Market: An Assessment of the State of Research
- 10 From Barry Wellman and Scot Wortley, “Different Strokes from Different Folks”
- A Network Pilgrim’s Progress: Twenty-Six Realizations in Fifty-Five Years
- 11 From James S. Coleman, “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital”
- Three Decades of Research into Social Capital: Achievements, Blind Spots, and Future Directions
- 12 From Bernice A. Pescosolido, “Beyond Rational Choice”
- Confronting How People Cope with Crisis: From the Social Organization Strategy Framework to the Network Episode Model to the Network Embedded Symbiome
- 13 From Scott L. Feld, “The Focused Organization of Social Ties”
- Reflections on “The Focused Organization of Social Ties” and its Implications for Bonding and Bridging
- 14 From Ronald S. Burt, Structural Holes
- Structural Holes Capstone, Cautions, and Enthusiasms
- 15 From Edward O. Laumann, Peter V. Marsden, and David Prensky, “The Boundary Specification Problem in Network Analysis”
- On the Boundary Specification Problem in Network Analysis: An Update and Extension to Personal Social Networks
- 16 From Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and James M. Cook, “Birds of a Feather”
- The Enormous Flock of Homophily Researchers: Assessing and Promoting a Research Agenda
- 17 From Robert Huckfeldt and John Sprague, “Networks in Context”
- Individuals, Groups, and Networks: Implications for the Study and Practice of Democratic Politics
- 18 From Nan Lin, “Building a Network Theory of Social Capital”
- Social Capital: An Update
- 19 On the General Social Survey
- IV New Perspectives
- Index
- Recent Books in the Series
- References
13 - From Scott L. Feld, “The Focused Organization of Social Ties”
from III - Later Foundations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 October 2021
- Personal Networks
- Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences
- Personal Networks
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- I Background
- II Early Foundations
- III Later Foundations
- 8 From Claude S. Fischer, To Dwell among Friends
- From the Northern California Community Study, 1977–1978, to the University of California, Berkeley, Social Networks Project, 2015–2020
- 9 From Mark S. Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties”
- Strength of Weak Ties in the Labor Market: An Assessment of the State of Research
- 10 From Barry Wellman and Scot Wortley, “Different Strokes from Different Folks”
- A Network Pilgrim’s Progress: Twenty-Six Realizations in Fifty-Five Years
- 11 From James S. Coleman, “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital”
- Three Decades of Research into Social Capital: Achievements, Blind Spots, and Future Directions
- 12 From Bernice A. Pescosolido, “Beyond Rational Choice”
- Confronting How People Cope with Crisis: From the Social Organization Strategy Framework to the Network Episode Model to the Network Embedded Symbiome
- 13 From Scott L. Feld, “The Focused Organization of Social Ties”
- Reflections on “The Focused Organization of Social Ties” and its Implications for Bonding and Bridging
- 14 From Ronald S. Burt, Structural Holes
- Structural Holes Capstone, Cautions, and Enthusiasms
- 15 From Edward O. Laumann, Peter V. Marsden, and David Prensky, “The Boundary Specification Problem in Network Analysis”
- On the Boundary Specification Problem in Network Analysis: An Update and Extension to Personal Social Networks
- 16 From Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and James M. Cook, “Birds of a Feather”
- The Enormous Flock of Homophily Researchers: Assessing and Promoting a Research Agenda
- 17 From Robert Huckfeldt and John Sprague, “Networks in Context”
- Individuals, Groups, and Networks: Implications for the Study and Practice of Democratic Politics
- 18 From Nan Lin, “Building a Network Theory of Social Capital”
- Social Capital: An Update
- 19 On the General Social Survey
- IV New Perspectives
- Index
- Recent Books in the Series
- References
Summary
The concept of a “focus of activity” was developed to describe the nature of non-network social structures that often underly the formation of intersecting clusters of ties in large-scale social networks. The primary purpose of the “focus theory” was to encourage network analysts to consider the impact of those underlying structures before attributing too much of the structure and consequences of social networks to psychological processes, individual choices, or self-contained network processes. We have been pleased to see that network researchers have increasingly considered the impacts of these non-network social structures. Nevertheless, we take this opportunity to clarify and extend the focus theory in ways that may make it more applicable and useful for more purposes. We show how the focus theory can be reconciled with some influential network theories that may initially appear inconsistent with it. We discuss how the focused organization facilitates indirect connections across large-scale social networks; and, we explicitly extend the focus theory by considering additional processes causing both the loss of old ties and the accumulation of new ties within clusters over time.
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- Personal NetworksClassic Readings and New Directions in Egocentric Analysis, pp. 350 - 359Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021