Social network

A social network is a social structure made of nodes that are tied by one or more specific types of relatives, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease communication or airline routes.
Social network analysis views common relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the associations between the actors. Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a serious role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.
In its simplest form, a social network is a map of all of the appropriate ties between the nodes being studied. The network can also be used to decide the social capital of individual actors. These concepts are often displayed in a shared network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines.