Peter Groenewegen - Socio-Semantic Networks: Social Structure and Content in Networks (NetGloW 2014)

Peter Groenewegen (VU University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) stated that social network analysis - based on interactions and relations - and sematic network analysis - that is focused on connections between words -have so far been developed as two separated spheres in social science research. Hence, both of them provide only a one-sided view of socio-semantic neworks. Thus, in his keynote speech he suggested to incorporate these two traditional theoretical views into a single framework, combining them with 3 distinct approaches: 1) comparing semantic structures of different network; 2) combining social structures of human agents and meaningful content; 3) studying the dynamics of socio-semantic networks and the role of popular concept vs popular actor. These new approaches enrich the current empirical research into networks by putting meaning on an equal footing to social interaction.