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A Fuzzy Social Network Analysis Method and a Case Study on Tianya Tourism Forum in China

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Foundations of Intelligent Systems

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 277))

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Abstract

Social networking service (SNS) has become online service platforms that focus on facilitating the building of social networks among people who share interests, activities, backgrounds, or real-life connections and has had a rapid development in China in the past few years. This paper aims to develop a fuzzy social network service analysis method, which combines graph theory with related fuzzy approach, to analyze the social network structural features and the distribution characteristics of interpersonal nodes in SNS community. A case study on a very famous Chinese tourism BBS—Tianya—is conducted to illustrate and validate the proposed approach. The research findings are as follows: (1) The attraction degrees of various areas in the forum are significantly different; (2) interpersonal nodes in the forum are concentrated relatively; (3) the fuzzy out-degrees and the fuzzy in-degrees of interpersonal nodes in the forum conflict each other; and (4) the distribution of interpersonal nodes is influenced by geographical relations. These findings can directly support social network service management and particularly tourism online service developments.

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Acknowledgment

The work presented in this paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41271142).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Tourism, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, 050024, Hebei, People’s Republic of China

    Zi Lu, Ruiling Han & Weilu Du

  2. Decision Systems and e-Service Intelligence Lab, Centre for Quantum Computation and Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology, Sydney, 15 Broadway, Ultimo, 2007, NSW, Australia

    Dianshuang Wu

Authors
  1. Zi Lu
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  2. Ruiling Han
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  3. Weilu Du
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  4. Dianshuang Wu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dianshuang Wu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computer and Software Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China

    Zhenkun Wen

  2. School of Information Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China

    Tianrui Li

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Lu, Z., Han, R., Du, W., Wu, D. (2014). A Fuzzy Social Network Analysis Method and a Case Study on Tianya Tourism Forum in China. In: Wen, Z., Li, T. (eds) Foundations of Intelligent Systems. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 277. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54924-3_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54924-3_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-54923-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-54924-3

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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