Tie Strength and Relationship Importance

Readings

• Granovetter, Mark (1973) The Strength of Weak Ties.American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78, Issue 6, May 1973, pp. 1360-1380. Read for 9/16
• Eric Gilbert and Karrie Karahalios. 2009. Predicting Tie Strength With Social Media. Proceedings of CHI 2009.
  • A video of a presentation by Karrie Karahalios on work related to this paper
• Optional: Granovetter, M. 1974. Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers.

  Focus on the Introduction plus chapters 2 and 3. Read chapters 8-10 and be prepared to discuss in class.

• Granovetter, M. S. 1983. The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited. Sociological Theory, Volume 1 (1983), 201-233.

Weak ties are bridges

• Individual strong ties from a denser sub network
• For the weak ties, each of those people will have a dense sub-network of strong ties
• Thus, the weak path is a bridge between these tightly connected groups

People with few weak ties

• Are less susceptable to new information

Impact on the individual

• We learn about a small part of others' personalities
• This helps us develop a sense of individuality

Economic situation and strong ties

• Poor rely more on strong ties
• Midwestern ghetto and mexico city slum

Replication of Milgram

• Most of the people deleivering the item had weak ties with the recipient

Importance of strong ties

• Weak ties are conduits of information but strong ties speed flow because of credibility and influence

Racial Integration

• Traditional strategy - encourage strong friendships between black and white students
• Weak ties are easier to create through classroom encounters

• Stronger morale among staff in psych hospital because there are few strong ties and lots of weak ties
• Strong ties can lock others out