Connectivity and Community Structure of Online and Register-based Social Networks

TL;DR

This study compares online and register-based social networks in the Netherlands, revealing similar connectivity patterns and complex community structures influenced by geography, urbanization, and cultural history, demonstrating both networks' value for population-wide social analysis.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of online and register-based social networks, highlighting their similarities in connectivity and complex community structures beyond simple geographic boundaries.

Findings

Connectivity patterns are similar, especially between nearby areas.

Community structures are centered around urban and sociocultural factors.

Online and register data both effectively reveal population-wide social structures.

Abstract

The dominance of online social media data as a source of population-scale social network studies has recently been challenged by networks constructed from government-curated register data. In this paper, we investigate how the two compare, focusing on aggregations of the Dutch online social network (OSN) Hyves and a register-based social network (RSN) of the Netherlands. First and foremost, we find that the connectivity of the two population-scale networks is strikingly similar, especially between closeby municipalities, with more long-distance ties captured by the OSN. This result holds when correcting for population density and geographical distance, notwithstanding that these two patterns appear to be the main drivers of connectivity. Second, we show that the community structure of neither network follows strict administrative geographical delineations (e.g., provinces). Instead, communities appear to either center around large metropolitan areas or, outside of the country's most urbanized area, are comprised of large blocks of interdependent municipalities. Interestingly, beyond population and distance-related patterns, communities also highlight the persistence of deeply rooted historical and sociocultural communities based on religion. The results of this study suggest that both online social networks and register-based social networks are valuable resources for insights into the social network structure of an entire population.