more key terms
Small-world model: Also known as “the six degrees of separation,” this model explains the ways in which networks manifest redundancy or clustering, and that in spite of this clustering, networks still are able to connect individual nodes that are seemingly disconnected. Duncan Watts explains, “[t]he claim of the small-world phenomenon…states that I can get a message to anyone, even if they have absolutely nothing in common with me at all” (41). As sociologist Granovetter found in the 70s, it is often the connections made across clusters that are the most useful: “Paradoxically,…it is not your close friends who are of most use to you. Because they know many of the same people you do, and may often be exposed to similar information, they are rarely the ones who can help you leap into a new environment…it tends to be the casual acquaintances who are the useful ones because they can give you information you would never otherwise have received” (Watts 49). The connections across clusters are called weak ties (Granovetter).
Hubs and Connectors: Barabasi found that his work with the network of the World Wide Web did not always lend itself neatly to the combined small-world model/random graph theory that Watts and Strogatz developed. That is, the mathematics that drives the small-word/random graph theory constructs (or assumes) “a deeply egalitarian society, whose links are ruled by the throw of a dice” (Barabasi 54). In stark contrast, Barabasi’s research explodes the commonly held notion that the Web as a network is highly democratic. Essentially, Barabasi claims that the Web is NOT classless: “[t]he most intriguing result of our Web-mapping project was the complete absence of democracy, fairness, and egalitarian values on the Web” (56). Essentially, the Web is made up of a handful of “connectors,” which are exceptionally well-connected by countless incoming links, and an innumerable number of nodes that garner only a handful of incoming links. This fits nicely in with Pareto’s Law or the 80/20 rule, since 80 percent of the links on the Web only go to 15 percent of the pages (66).