Hyperlink Networks

Nodes, Ties, Edges, and Boundaries

Hyperlink analysis is an approach for studying the Web presence of organizations and institutions, revealing patterns of connections among brands, businesses, parties, candidates, news outlets, and products that have Internet Websites. Three fundamental and interrelated methodological questions need to be answered when analyzing social networks: what are the nodes or vertices, what are the network ties or edges, and what are the network boundaries?

Determining what constitutes a node or entity in a hyperlink network can be complicated. Other domains for social network analysis are less complex. In a friendship network—for example, in a school—the nodes can easily be mapped to individual people. Identifying the nodes in a Twitter network and a Facebook network is similarly straightforward, since each user account in these social media environments is more closely associated with an individual. However, Web 1.0 hyperlink networks may be populated by nodes that are not homogenous in type. For example, it is very easy to construct a hyperlink network where nodes will represent organizations such as universities, government departments, companies, and nongovernment organizations (NGOs); these are the Websites of entities that have an off-line or real-world presence. But there may be nodes that represent entities that only exist on the Web; for example, portal sites providing lists of links to other sites, online businesses that have no off-line counterpart, vanity Websites that promote a particular brand [Page 394]or movie, and Weblog or blog sites. Hyperlink network research may therefore focus on studying patterns of connection without attempting to map pages and links to organizational or national categories, focusing on technical attributes like the transfer speed of a connection or service.

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