Hi Giorgos Diakoulakis

1) First of all, in SNA the node represents individual of a given type (instance) and there could (and usually are) be many individuals of that type in the network, while in FCM the node usually represents concept (that is class, not a class instantiation), so there wouldn't make sense to put many of them on one diagram.

The biggest difference, however, is that SNA uses very well (mathematically) defined SNA metrics.

2) You use SNA when conducting research on social set and want to find e.g. individual (one of many others) that performs a specific role in the whole society. E.g. when monitoring bees and relations among them you could easily find the queen and the bee brood. You use FCM when modeling the concepts and their relations to understand more deeply general rules governing a given system (e.g. how the weather conditions - temperature, humidity... influencing the honey production volume).

3) I have no idea :)

Please try to read this article:

Stakias, G., Psoras, M., & Glykas, M. (2013). Fuzzy cognitive maps in social and business network analysis. In Business Process Management (pp. 241-279). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

I think it will help you understand the differences.

GOOD LUCK

Hi Georgios,

Anne has provided a good couple of answers there.

Just some more stuff to aid your thinking:

1. With SNA, it's more of a process which is followed using various analysis types, whereas FCM seems to just be a specific analysis design/ method to use for a given research question. They can produce nice sociograms/ network maps, but interpreting them is very different.

2. I can only speak for SNA. SNA can be used across a broad range of social science-based disciplines. It is more important that you implement this given research methodology based on answering a given research question rather than framing it on a given discipline. Here's a great resource for SNA: https://www.methods.manchester.ac.uk/themes/survey-and-statistical-methods/social-network-analysis/

3. you would have to do a quick literature review search using the key terms and have a look (for example of Web of Science). Play around with the search strings and try synonyms if nothing comes up. If you can't find anything on your specific context (agri policy) then just look for the papers who use Social Network Analysis (maybe using the software NodeXL, Gephi, CNET, UCINET, Pajek.

I'm happy to have a chat with you if you drop me a message should you need me to expand on anything.

With best wishes,

Henry

Thank you very much for your answers and especially, for providing me sources for further reading.

Henry Sidsaph That would be really useful, but firstly I would like to spend some time on understanding these methodologies

Hello Giorgos Diakoulakis ,

could you shed light on the questions you asked ? I believe you know more at this time :) .

Thanks for sharing.

Regards