Does social network data gathered online accurately reflect real-world offline relationships?
This article directly compares online and offline social ties, using novel experimental methods. We collected data on both types of connections to test external validity.
We found strong similarity between online and offline relationships despite their different contexts. The nature of these ties appears consistent across domains.
These results confirm that online network data can effectively test long-standing theories in political science about social networks' role in collective action.
| Testing Social Science Network Theories With Online Network Data: An Evaluation of External Validity was authored by James Bisbee and Jennifer Larson. It was published by Cambridge in APSR in 2017. |
