- Email: [email protected]
Festschrift for Linton C. Freeman: Introduction
Social Networks 24 (2002) 311–314
Editorial
Festschrift for Linton C. Freeman: Introduction With this special issue, we honor the work of Linton C. Freeman. It is the result of a celebration of Lin and his work that occurred in Vancouver, Canada, on 16 April 2000. The celebration included presentations of new research on social networks and personal reminiscences from Lin’s students and colleagues. The present Festschrift draws on some of the research that was presented in Vancouver, suitable for publication in Social Networks, and other contributions that were solicited after the event. The contributors to this special issue have sought to honor Lin by submitting important work that is central to their own research programs, with the understanding that their paper submissions would undergo the usual rigors of a peer review process and that the publication of the special issue might not be rapid. Because Lin is not susceptible to flattery and he values only the production of new ideas and findings on social networks, the task of honoring him is made difficult. If the present work has an impact on the field, then we will have succeeded in honoring Lin; if that impact does not materialize, then at least we can say that we tried our best to honor Lin on the only terms that he would find acceptable. Linton Freeman’s research contributions to the field of social networks have been seminal and enduring. He was one of the three intellectual leaders of the field who emerged during the 1970s with distinctive approaches to network analysis: Harrison White and his colleagues and students at Harvard were developing a “block-modeling” approach; Edward Laumann and his students at the University of Chicago were employing a multi-dimensional scaling approach; Lin Freeman and the group of colleagues and students assembled at the University of California at Irvine were developing a multitude of techniques and perspectives often centered around graph-analytic approaches. Among the most enduring pillars of Lin’s contributions over the course of his career are a set of influential publications on centrality (Freeman, 1977, 1979, 1980a; Freeman et al., 1963, 1980, 1991), on hierarchy and structural complexity in social groups (Freeman, 1978, 1980b, 1992a; Freeman et al., 1992; Freeman and Winch, 1957), and on cognitive factors affecting the perception of network relations and structure (Freeman, 1992b; Freeman et al., 1987, 1988; Freeman and Romney, 1987). Most recently, Lin has been a driving force in the diffusion of techniques for the visualization of social networks. Lin’s passionate engagement with the field of social networks has been unselfish, including efforts to both personally and formally support social network research and especially the young investigators in the field. He is the founder and a continuing editor of Social Networks. He is one of the core founders of the annual, and hugely successful, network conference that brings together investigators from various nations and disciplines, and 0378-8733/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 8 7 3 3 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 1 0 - 2
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Editorial / Social Networks 24 (2002) 311–314
of the international professional association of network researchers (INSNA). At Irvine, he helped to build and invigorate what was, for a time, arguably the strongest group of investigators ever assembled with a focus on network analysis. Steve Borgatti described the atmosphere at Irvine as follows: The main thing I remember about Lin was that he legitimized serious in depth conversations about network concepts and methods. In the middle and late 80s, say 1986, you would come by his office on the 6th floor virtually any time any day and there would be two or three people there having an argument about whether you could model the continuous world using discrete methods, or whether Galois lattices made it more or less difficult to visualize structure. So you would just come in and join the fray. It was wonderful. It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that Lin’s important contributions to the institutional infrastructure of the field were successful because his efforts were combined with a genuine intellectual excitement and engagement with his own work and the work of others in the field. Lin’s personal touch and support were felt by many. Pat Doreian, editor of the Journal of Mathematical Sociology, describes Lin’s general impact as follows: By providing so much by way of social organization and brilliant intellectual leadership, Lin Freeman is one of the most important people working in network analysis. It is hard to envision what the specialty would look like without his many contributions and his catholic and generous support of the work of many others. Ed Laumann writes: Lin Freeman has played a central role in the evolution of the field devoted to the analysis of social networks from its inception back in the early 1970s. He took the lead in organizing several foundational conferences at Irvine that brought together a diverse set of scholars to talk about the central issues confronting the field, most notably in the area of packaged software needs, etc. He also helped forge the organizational embodiment of the “movement” in INSNA, with a number of his faculty colleagues at Irvine playing key roles. He himself wrote his classic paper on centrality measures in 1979 that has served as a major reference point for centrality to substantive issues. In subsequent years his steady hand at the helm of the journal, Social Networks, nurtured the fledgling field with a high standard of expectations for publication. It would be difficult to underestimate the critical role he has played in all phases of consolidating the themes that have come to unite us over the years. Barry Wellman, who also has been a pivotal figure in establishing the present institutional infrastructure of the field and maintaining its vitality, writes: Lin Freeman was the leader of a merry, fruitful band of network analysts who moved the field forward immensely. First, they had critical mass—a sizable number of faculty and graduate students who thought and talked and wrote about networks all the time. Second, Lin gave the world the Social Networks journal, which provided an intellectually fruitful home for the subject. He has proven to be a fine, inclusive, sharp-minded, and broad-minded editor. Third, Lin was the inspirer of UCINET, which was a great enabler— no longer was social network analysis the exclusive bailiwick of a high priesthood. With UCINET, (almost) normal scholars could do complex methodological deeds to support fine theory and substance.
Editorial / Social Networks 24 (2002) 311–314
313
Barry’s third point deserves some elaboration, because there is more to the story about the origins of UCINET than Lin’s important substantive contributions to the development of what is now the standard software package for network analysis. Steve Borgatti describes the origins of UCINET as follows: People were writing their own programs to do network analytic things. The programs were written in different languages and had different input formats. Lin’s first contribution was simply to collect all these programs together into a single repository. This he could do because he was personally acquainted with all the different people who were developing software/techniques. Then he set out to give them all a common input structure. This he did sometimes by writing a Basic front end. Other times he rewrote the program from scratch. Eventually, all the programs were rewritten in Basic (I think this was UCINET 2.0). Then Bruce Macevoy, a post doc, spent a year at Irvine, and Bruce rewrote all the programs in a new version of Basic and added to them. This was UCINET 3.0. Then I wrote NETPAC in Pascal. Lin liked it and felt there was no reason it should compete with UCINET. So we integrated UCINET into NETPAC and called it UCINET 4.0. Those readers who have developed network software fully understand the amount of time and effort that is involved in the above enterprise. Steve’s account also points to Lin’s remarkable ability to assure the continuity of his efforts by “letting go” of his important initiatives when it makes sense to do so. Fields flourish when great ideas are combined with methodological tools to pursue them. Lin has made sure that there is a stable outlet for network ideas (with the journal Social Networks) and that the tools are available to keep the field vital (with the software programs in UCINET). He has done this by initiating what he feels is necessary for the good of the field and then generously and wisely releasing control of the fruits of this work to other persons. He did this with UCINET when he turned over the lead in network software development and dissemination to Steve Borgatti, and he has more recently moved in this direction with the journal Social Networks, asking Ron Breiger to join him as co-editor. Lin’s ideas have been important and widely acknowledged. His efforts to nurture the field of network analysis also have paid off. Lin’s contributions to the field of network analysis surely will continue, because his passion for network research is undiminished. Remarkably, his publication productivity has increased since his “retirement” from the University of California. The present papers are representative of the continuing intellectual vitality of the field to which Lin has devoted his attention, the breadth of its application, and the theoretical importance of network analysis to the development of a social science. It is a pleasure to commend to readers’ attention the research contributions that follow.
Acknowledgements We are indebted to Pat Doreian, Ed Laumann, Barry Wellman, and Steve Borgatti for allowing us to quote their personal communications to us about Lin and his work. We also thank Bill Richards and Richard Seary for organizing the Vancouver network conference. Finally, we thank Ron Breiger for inviting us to edit this special issue of Social Networks in honor of Lin.
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Editorial / Social Networks 24 (2002) 311–314
References Freeman, L.C., 1977. A set of measures of centrality based upon betweeness. Sociometry 40, 35–41. Freeman, L.C., 1978. Segregation in social networks. Sociological Methods and Research 6, 411–429. Freeman, L.C., 1979. Centrality in social networks. I. Conceptual clarification. Social Networks 1, 215–239. Freeman, L.C., 1980a. The gatekeeper, pair-dependency and structural centrality. Quality and Quantity 14, 585–592. Freeman, L.C., 1980b. Q-analysis and the structure of friendship networks. International Journal of Man–Machine Studies 12, 367–378. Freeman, L.C., 1992a. The sociological concept of group: an empirical test of two models. American Journal of Sociology 98, 55–79. Freeman, L.C., 1992b. Filling in the blanks: a theory of cognitive categories and the structure of social affiliation. Social Psychology Quarterly 55, 118–127. Freeman, L.C., Borgatti, S.P., White, D.R., 1991. Centrality in valued graphs: a measure of betweeness based on network flow. Social Networks 13, 141–154. Freeman, L.C., Fararo, T.J., Bloomberg Jr., W., Sunshine, M.H., 1963. Locating leaders in local communities. American Sociological Review 28, 791–798. Freeman, L.C., Freeman, S.C., Michaelson, A.G., 1988. On human social intelligence. Journal of Social and Biological Structures 11, 415–425. Freeman, L.C., Freeman, S.C., Romney, A.K., 1992. The implications of social structure for dominance hierarchies in Red Deer, Cervus Elaphus L. Animal Behaviour 44, 239–245. Freeman, L.C., Roeder, D., Mulholland, R., 1980. Centrality in social networks. II. Experimental results. Social Networks 2, 119–142. Freeman, L.C., Romney, A.K., 1987. Words, deeds and social structure: a preliminary study of the reliability of informants. Human Organization 46, 330–334. Freeman, L.C., Romney, A.K., Freeman, S.C., 1987. Cognitive structure and informant accuracy. American Anthropologist 89, 311–325. Freeman, L.C., Winch, R.F., 1957. Societal complexity: an empirical test of a typology of societies. American Journal of Sociology 62, 461–466.
Noah E. Friedkin∗ Department of Sociology, University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA David Krackhardt Heinz School of Public Policy and Management Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-805-893-2840; fax: +1-805-893-3324 E-mail address: [email protected] (N.E. Friedkin)
Editorial
Festschrift for Linton C. Freeman: Introduction With this special issue, we honor the work of Linton C. Freeman. It is the result of a celebration of Lin and his work that occurred in Vancouver, Canada, on 16 April 2000. The celebration included presentations of new research on social networks and personal reminiscences from Lin’s students and colleagues. The present Festschrift draws on some of the research that was presented in Vancouver, suitable for publication in Social Networks, and other contributions that were solicited after the event. The contributors to this special issue have sought to honor Lin by submitting important work that is central to their own research programs, with the understanding that their paper submissions would undergo the usual rigors of a peer review process and that the publication of the special issue might not be rapid. Because Lin is not susceptible to flattery and he values only the production of new ideas and findings on social networks, the task of honoring him is made difficult. If the present work has an impact on the field, then we will have succeeded in honoring Lin; if that impact does not materialize, then at least we can say that we tried our best to honor Lin on the only terms that he would find acceptable. Linton Freeman’s research contributions to the field of social networks have been seminal and enduring. He was one of the three intellectual leaders of the field who emerged during the 1970s with distinctive approaches to network analysis: Harrison White and his colleagues and students at Harvard were developing a “block-modeling” approach; Edward Laumann and his students at the University of Chicago were employing a multi-dimensional scaling approach; Lin Freeman and the group of colleagues and students assembled at the University of California at Irvine were developing a multitude of techniques and perspectives often centered around graph-analytic approaches. Among the most enduring pillars of Lin’s contributions over the course of his career are a set of influential publications on centrality (Freeman, 1977, 1979, 1980a; Freeman et al., 1963, 1980, 1991), on hierarchy and structural complexity in social groups (Freeman, 1978, 1980b, 1992a; Freeman et al., 1992; Freeman and Winch, 1957), and on cognitive factors affecting the perception of network relations and structure (Freeman, 1992b; Freeman et al., 1987, 1988; Freeman and Romney, 1987). Most recently, Lin has been a driving force in the diffusion of techniques for the visualization of social networks. Lin’s passionate engagement with the field of social networks has been unselfish, including efforts to both personally and formally support social network research and especially the young investigators in the field. He is the founder and a continuing editor of Social Networks. He is one of the core founders of the annual, and hugely successful, network conference that brings together investigators from various nations and disciplines, and 0378-8733/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 8 7 3 3 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 1 0 - 2
312
Editorial / Social Networks 24 (2002) 311–314
of the international professional association of network researchers (INSNA). At Irvine, he helped to build and invigorate what was, for a time, arguably the strongest group of investigators ever assembled with a focus on network analysis. Steve Borgatti described the atmosphere at Irvine as follows: The main thing I remember about Lin was that he legitimized serious in depth conversations about network concepts and methods. In the middle and late 80s, say 1986, you would come by his office on the 6th floor virtually any time any day and there would be two or three people there having an argument about whether you could model the continuous world using discrete methods, or whether Galois lattices made it more or less difficult to visualize structure. So you would just come in and join the fray. It was wonderful. It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that Lin’s important contributions to the institutional infrastructure of the field were successful because his efforts were combined with a genuine intellectual excitement and engagement with his own work and the work of others in the field. Lin’s personal touch and support were felt by many. Pat Doreian, editor of the Journal of Mathematical Sociology, describes Lin’s general impact as follows: By providing so much by way of social organization and brilliant intellectual leadership, Lin Freeman is one of the most important people working in network analysis. It is hard to envision what the specialty would look like without his many contributions and his catholic and generous support of the work of many others. Ed Laumann writes: Lin Freeman has played a central role in the evolution of the field devoted to the analysis of social networks from its inception back in the early 1970s. He took the lead in organizing several foundational conferences at Irvine that brought together a diverse set of scholars to talk about the central issues confronting the field, most notably in the area of packaged software needs, etc. He also helped forge the organizational embodiment of the “movement” in INSNA, with a number of his faculty colleagues at Irvine playing key roles. He himself wrote his classic paper on centrality measures in 1979 that has served as a major reference point for centrality to substantive issues. In subsequent years his steady hand at the helm of the journal, Social Networks, nurtured the fledgling field with a high standard of expectations for publication. It would be difficult to underestimate the critical role he has played in all phases of consolidating the themes that have come to unite us over the years. Barry Wellman, who also has been a pivotal figure in establishing the present institutional infrastructure of the field and maintaining its vitality, writes: Lin Freeman was the leader of a merry, fruitful band of network analysts who moved the field forward immensely. First, they had critical mass—a sizable number of faculty and graduate students who thought and talked and wrote about networks all the time. Second, Lin gave the world the Social Networks journal, which provided an intellectually fruitful home for the subject. He has proven to be a fine, inclusive, sharp-minded, and broad-minded editor. Third, Lin was the inspirer of UCINET, which was a great enabler— no longer was social network analysis the exclusive bailiwick of a high priesthood. With UCINET, (almost) normal scholars could do complex methodological deeds to support fine theory and substance.
Editorial / Social Networks 24 (2002) 311–314
313
Barry’s third point deserves some elaboration, because there is more to the story about the origins of UCINET than Lin’s important substantive contributions to the development of what is now the standard software package for network analysis. Steve Borgatti describes the origins of UCINET as follows: People were writing their own programs to do network analytic things. The programs were written in different languages and had different input formats. Lin’s first contribution was simply to collect all these programs together into a single repository. This he could do because he was personally acquainted with all the different people who were developing software/techniques. Then he set out to give them all a common input structure. This he did sometimes by writing a Basic front end. Other times he rewrote the program from scratch. Eventually, all the programs were rewritten in Basic (I think this was UCINET 2.0). Then Bruce Macevoy, a post doc, spent a year at Irvine, and Bruce rewrote all the programs in a new version of Basic and added to them. This was UCINET 3.0. Then I wrote NETPAC in Pascal. Lin liked it and felt there was no reason it should compete with UCINET. So we integrated UCINET into NETPAC and called it UCINET 4.0. Those readers who have developed network software fully understand the amount of time and effort that is involved in the above enterprise. Steve’s account also points to Lin’s remarkable ability to assure the continuity of his efforts by “letting go” of his important initiatives when it makes sense to do so. Fields flourish when great ideas are combined with methodological tools to pursue them. Lin has made sure that there is a stable outlet for network ideas (with the journal Social Networks) and that the tools are available to keep the field vital (with the software programs in UCINET). He has done this by initiating what he feels is necessary for the good of the field and then generously and wisely releasing control of the fruits of this work to other persons. He did this with UCINET when he turned over the lead in network software development and dissemination to Steve Borgatti, and he has more recently moved in this direction with the journal Social Networks, asking Ron Breiger to join him as co-editor. Lin’s ideas have been important and widely acknowledged. His efforts to nurture the field of network analysis also have paid off. Lin’s contributions to the field of network analysis surely will continue, because his passion for network research is undiminished. Remarkably, his publication productivity has increased since his “retirement” from the University of California. The present papers are representative of the continuing intellectual vitality of the field to which Lin has devoted his attention, the breadth of its application, and the theoretical importance of network analysis to the development of a social science. It is a pleasure to commend to readers’ attention the research contributions that follow.
Acknowledgements We are indebted to Pat Doreian, Ed Laumann, Barry Wellman, and Steve Borgatti for allowing us to quote their personal communications to us about Lin and his work. We also thank Bill Richards and Richard Seary for organizing the Vancouver network conference. Finally, we thank Ron Breiger for inviting us to edit this special issue of Social Networks in honor of Lin.
314
Editorial / Social Networks 24 (2002) 311–314
References Freeman, L.C., 1977. A set of measures of centrality based upon betweeness. Sociometry 40, 35–41. Freeman, L.C., 1978. Segregation in social networks. Sociological Methods and Research 6, 411–429. Freeman, L.C., 1979. Centrality in social networks. I. Conceptual clarification. Social Networks 1, 215–239. Freeman, L.C., 1980a. The gatekeeper, pair-dependency and structural centrality. Quality and Quantity 14, 585–592. Freeman, L.C., 1980b. Q-analysis and the structure of friendship networks. International Journal of Man–Machine Studies 12, 367–378. Freeman, L.C., 1992a. The sociological concept of group: an empirical test of two models. American Journal of Sociology 98, 55–79. Freeman, L.C., 1992b. Filling in the blanks: a theory of cognitive categories and the structure of social affiliation. Social Psychology Quarterly 55, 118–127. Freeman, L.C., Borgatti, S.P., White, D.R., 1991. Centrality in valued graphs: a measure of betweeness based on network flow. Social Networks 13, 141–154. Freeman, L.C., Fararo, T.J., Bloomberg Jr., W., Sunshine, M.H., 1963. Locating leaders in local communities. American Sociological Review 28, 791–798. Freeman, L.C., Freeman, S.C., Michaelson, A.G., 1988. On human social intelligence. Journal of Social and Biological Structures 11, 415–425. Freeman, L.C., Freeman, S.C., Romney, A.K., 1992. The implications of social structure for dominance hierarchies in Red Deer, Cervus Elaphus L. Animal Behaviour 44, 239–245. Freeman, L.C., Roeder, D., Mulholland, R., 1980. Centrality in social networks. II. Experimental results. Social Networks 2, 119–142. Freeman, L.C., Romney, A.K., 1987. Words, deeds and social structure: a preliminary study of the reliability of informants. Human Organization 46, 330–334. Freeman, L.C., Romney, A.K., Freeman, S.C., 1987. Cognitive structure and informant accuracy. American Anthropologist 89, 311–325. Freeman, L.C., Winch, R.F., 1957. Societal complexity: an empirical test of a typology of societies. American Journal of Sociology 62, 461–466.
Noah E. Friedkin∗ Department of Sociology, University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA David Krackhardt Heinz School of Public Policy and Management Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-805-893-2840; fax: +1-805-893-3324 E-mail address: [email protected] (N.E. Friedkin)