Chapter 6: Social Network Graphs

The growth of social networking sites has been one of the most active trends in digital media over the years. Since the late 1990s, when the first social applications were published, they have attracted billions of active users worldwide, many of whom have integrated digital social interactions into their daily lives. New ways of communication are being driven by social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, among others. Users can share ideas, post updates and feedback, or engage in activities and events while sharing their broader interests on social networking sites.

Besides, social networks constitute a huge source of information for studying user behaviors, interpreting interaction among people, and predicting their interests. Structuring them as graphs, where a vertex corresponds to a person and an edge represents the connection between them, enables a powerful tool to extract useful knowledge.

However, understanding the dynamics...