Authoritative sources in a hyperlinked environment
Journal of the ACM (JACM)
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Social relations have been a research interest in many areas of social sciences. In sociology, for example, individuals up in the power hierarchy in a group can be determined quantitatively by looking at the number of direct relations to others in the group[1]. Similarly, in management and economics, alliance relationships between firms are examined carefully to explain phenomenon such as innovation and market leadership[6]. Similar problems were encountered in Anthropology, Zoology, and many other fields. In most studies regarding social relations, one must look into the content of social relations in addition to their structure, an endeavor which demands ethnographic methods. Nevertheless, analysis of the structure alone has been a powerful tool which not only enables quantitative assessment of social structures, but also prompts elaboration of interpretive process.