Social network analysis of international scientific collaboration on family farming research

Abstract

In our research, we analysed the social network of authors of articles on family farming. Based on the definition of social network analysis, we did this on a macro level, as it examines relationships between individuals and interactions. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a wide strategy to investigate the social structure. SNA is used to obtain patterns of relationships between nodes to ascertain underlying social structure. Node is represented as people and group, meanwhile relation shows the relationship between nodes. The problem is how to find the most influential node in the network. The focus is how to measure centrality in the network. Our sample is based on 254 scientific articles written on this topic between 1976 and 2015. In this paper we modeled a co-authorship network based on this sample. We identified why network analysis is useful and who the most important authors are in the network.