Abstract
The mechanisms of real-world social network formation and evolution are one of the most important topics in the field of network science. In this study we collect data about the development of the Vkontakte (a popular Russian social networking site) network of first-year students at a Russian university. We analyze the network formation process from the moment of network establishing until its stabilization. Using Conditional Uniform Graph Test, we compare the graph-level indices of the observed network with random same-size networks that were generated according to random, preferential attachment, and small-world algorithms. We propose two explanatory mechanisms of online network growth: the connected component attachment mechanism and the brokerage mechanism.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Olessia Koltsova, Sergey Koltsov, and Vladimir Filippov for the opportunity to use VKminer application. We would like to thank Benjamin Lind for the discussion and feedback on this work. The article was prepared within the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) and supported within the framework of a subsidy granted to the HSE by the Government of the Russian Federation for the implementation of the Global Competitiveness Program. The financial support from the Government of the Russian Federation within the framework of the implementation of the 5-100 Programme Roadmap of the National Research University Higher School of Economics is acknowledged.
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Dokuka, S., Valeeva, D., Yudkevich, M. (2015). Formation and Evolution Mechanisms in Online Network of Students: The Vkontakte Case. In: Khachay, M., Konstantinova, N., Panchenko, A., Ignatov, D., Labunets, V. (eds) Analysis of Images, Social Networks and Texts. AIST 2015. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 542. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26123-2_26
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