Ethnic diversity in Facebook

 

CPM Report No.: 11-213
By: Ali Abbas
Date: 25th October 2011



Abstract:

Social Networking Systems (SNS) provide not only a virtual representation of one, but also afford people to develop and maintain their social network. In this report, we analyse a subset data of an SNS, Facebook, and capture the diversity of Facebook by approximating users’ ethnicity. We use Onomap, an ethnic classifier based on names, for our analysis. And then we identify the overall structure and cohesiveness of each ethnicity. We also find two clear power-law outlooks, in the degree distribution, as was found in [1], dissecting at degree 300. We classify our ethnic groups into major and minor groups based on their population. To identify the hidden communities within the network, we run a community detection mechanism and then in each identified community, we calculate inter and intra ethnic relationships. We find almost the same behaviour of ethnicities in the identified communities, where the major groups have higher homophily than minors.

Accessible as:

 


| Ali Abbas Home | Other CPM Reports | CPM home page |