The social landscape and the medium.
As an elementary visulaisation of a social structure we can plot a diagram of who is in contact with who, and from the frequency of contact, who is close to who.
From an internet chat channel:
From Shakespeare’s Julias Ceasar;
This diagram has added temporaral decay, an assumption that connections between people fade over time. The real world is alot more complex than that but it illustrates the current events in the play well.
Looking at the two graphs we can see that the ‘container’ for an environment effects the form of the social network that results.
http://www.networkweaving.com/blog/
This is a social network for a web based onlne community. The discrete nature of the forum allows ‘lurkers’. People who observe the discussions going on but do not contribute themselves, Almost as if they were witnesses to a broadcast medium like TV or Radio.