Patio Meeting #6
When? February 23, 2023, 16:00 to 17:00
Where? Collaboratory B, Harmonie Building
We would like to invite you to our first event of 2023. On this occasion, Vincenz Frey, Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Groningen, will deliver a presentation on trust in social networks.
Below you can see the program of the event:
| Time | Topic |
| 16:00-16:10 | Update on The Patio activities |
| 16:10-16:40 | Presentation Vincenz Frey: The emergence of exchange structures 2.0: An experimental study of trust and market-wide commitment formation |
| 16:40-17:00 | Q & A |
| 17:00-18:30 | Drinks |
Presentation abstract: Economic sociologists have long established that trust problems give rise to market structures in which many exchanges take place within committed long-term relationships between specific trading parties. Returning to proven partners allows actors to mitigate the risk of being taken advantage of, and the preferential choice of partners who were reliable in the past provides incentives for honest behavior. We revisit the question of how trust problems affect exchange structures. Arguably, institutionalized reputations systems are a key source of trust in modern economies. They enable actors to learn from the experiences of others and thereby provide a basis for trust and trustworthiness that substitutes for the incentives in dyadic long-term relations. Do trust problems no longer shape exchange structures in the presence of technologically facilitated large-scale reputation systems? We argue that trust problems still have far-reaching implications for market structures, but that the key feature they bring about is no longer dyadic commitments. We show in a game-theoretic model and in a laboratory experiment that in the presence of reputation systems, trust problems instead lead to the emergence of high market concentration, with all buyers frequenting one or a few sellers and excluding many others. The few sellers who are lucky to serve the whole market additionally earn a sizeable premium for their good reputations.
About Vincenz Frey: Vincenz Frey is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Groningen. His research focuses on trust and cooperation in social dilemmas, social influence processes, and social networks. In much of his research, he uses game-theoretic and computational tools to derive theoretic predictions and lab and online experiments to test predictions empirically.
If you would like to receive information about The Patio’s meetings and activities, fill in this form.
Third Edition: Workshop “Introduction to Social Network Analysis”
When: Monday November 7 2022, 13:30 – 17:00
Where: Collaboratories, Harmonie Building
Join the workshop “Introduction to social network analysis”, organized by the Center for Digital Humanities and The Patio. The workshop will introduce you to the key concepts of network theory and includes some hands-on social network exploration.
During this workshop you will:
- Learn the fundamentals of network theory
- Understand the basic methodological approaches to social network analysis
- Learn the characteristics of social network research
- Acquire hands-on experience in working with network data (provided)
- Have the opportunity to meet colleagues with a shared interest in social network research
This is a beginner’s workshop, mainly aimed at those interested in social networks without prior experience or knowledge. All MA students, PhD’s and staff are welcome.
This workshop is led by dr. Marc Esteve Del Valle and Silvia Donker.
The registration deadline is November 4. Space is limited, and registration will be on a first-come-first-serve basis.
We hope to see you there!
Questions? Mail us at thepationetwork@gmail.com
Patio Meeting #5
When? October 13, 2022, 16:00 to 17:00
Where? Collaboratory B, Harmonie Building
We would like to invite you to our first meeting of the 2022-2023 Academic year.
On this occasion, we are delighted to host a presentation by Dr Christina Prell, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Spatial Science at the University of Groningen.
Below you can see the program of the event:
| Time | Topic |
| 16:00-16:10 | Update on The Patio activities |
| 16:10-16:40 | Presentation Christina Prell: Learning to understand: disentangling the outcomes of stakeholder participation for climate change governance |
| 16:40-17:00 | Q & A |
| 17:00-18:30 | Drinks |
Presentation abstract: Stakeholder participation is increasingly seen as beneficial for short and long term responses to climate change risks. Past research highlights the role social networks play as both a key outcome of participation, as well as an important step towards other environmental governance goals. This paper focuses on the social relation of mutual understanding, which is often discussed in the environmental governance literature, but has yet to be studied as an empirical social network in its own right. Our paper builds and tests a conceptual framework linking participation to mutual understanding and social learning. We analyze three waves of network and perceptions data gathered on stakeholders participating in the Integrated Coastal Resiliency Assessment (ICRA) project, a 2.5 yearlong project aimed at developing a collaborative research assessment on the vulnerabilities to climate change experienced by an island community located in the Chesapeake Bay, USA. Our findings suggest that participation (measured as co-attendance in project events) leads to the formation of mutual understanding ties among stakeholders, but these ties do not necessarily lead to more similarity in stakeholders’ perceptions on climate change. We reflect on these findings, and the project more broadly, noting that our study lends support to scholars arguing that feelings of mutual understanding are potentially more important for certain forms of collective action, as opposed to whether or not stakeholders increase their shared beliefs or perceptions about the environmental problem in question.
About Christina: Christina Prell research focuses on the intersection of social networks and the environment. On a more local or regional scale, her work considers the role of social networks in shaping and/or diffusing views, values, and/or cultural beliefs about the environment. On a global scale, she considers how the structure of global trade networks drive and/or co-evolve with a number of environmental inequalities, chief among these being between-country differences in pollution, as embodied in trade.
Patio Meeting #4 and 1-Year Celebration
When? 28 April 2022
Where? 16:00 -17:00, Collaboratory A, Harmonie Building | 17:30, Drinks, Cafe De Keyzer, RSVP here
We invite you to our #4 meeting and 1-Year celebration. Below you can see the program of the event:
| Time | Topic |
| 16:00- 16:10 | Update on The Patio activities |
| 16:10-17:00 | Presentation: Dr. Sílvia Majó-Vázquez Title: Using network science to study fragmentation in the online information ecosystem |
| 17:00 | Drinks 1-year Celebration |
Presentation abstract: Silvia will present the results of a recent article where they use an unprecedented combination of observed data from the United States comprising a 5-year time window and involving tens of thousands of panelists. The study based on audience overlapping data and using network science tools unveils important differences in news diets across mobile and desktop devices.
About Silvia: Silvia Majó-Vázquez is a research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, UK, since 2017. Previously, she has been a visiting researcher at the Annenberg School for Communication (UPenn) in 2015 and 2016 and at the Graduate School of Economics of Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona in 2020.
After Silvia’s presentation, we will celebrate 1 year of The Patio at the Collaboratory A. Please RSVP here.
Workshop on Qualitative Social Network Analysis
When: November/30/2021, from 14:00-16:00
Registration: Here.
Location: Online via this link.
We are pleased to invite you to a Workshop on Qualitative Social Network Analysis, which will be delivered online by our foundational member dr. Başak Bilecen.
Dr. Başak Bilecen is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the University of Groningen. In the 2017-2018 academic year she worked at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University as a JFK Memorial Fellow funded by German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD). Her research focuses on international migration, transnational studies, social inequalities, transnational social support, and personal network analysis. She is the author of International Student Mobility and Transnational Friendships (2014). She has co-edited special issues using network methods in Population, Space and Place (2015), and Social Networks (2018).
This two-hour workshop on qualitative network analysis provides an introduction to the theories, concepts, and relevant studies on personal networks. After giving an overview of the current assumptions and techniques of qualitative network research, the participants will get familiar with different ways of data collection and analysis including the software called VennMaker.
We look forward to seeing you on November 30!
Patio Meeting #3
The third event of The Patio will take place on May 27 from 16:00 to 17:00. You can access the event through this link. Below you can see the program of the event:
| Time | Topic |
| 16:00 – 16:15 | Update on The Patio activities |
| 16:15 – 16:40 | Presentation: Drs. Ahmad Mir Mohammadi Kooshknow, University of Groningen, Integrated Research on Energy, Environment and Society (IREES) Title: Exploring the effects of electricity storage business models in the Netherlands: An exploratory agent-based modeling approach |
| 16:40 – 17:00 | Q&A and discussion |
Presentation abstract: Finding viable business models has been a great challenge for energy storage systems (ESS). We combine agent-based modeling and exploratory modeling analysis approach to explore the effects of ESS business models in the Dutch wholesale electricity market as a complex socio- technical system.
About Ahmad: Ahmad Mir Mohammadi Kooshknow was born in Iran in 1988. He received B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran, in 2010. Afterwards, he received M.Sc. in Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, in 2013. Currently, he is a PhD researcher at group of Integrated Research on Energy, Environment and Society (IREES) in University of Groningen. His specialization is modeling, simulation, and gaming for analysis and design of complex socio-technical systems and policies.
If you want a reminder of the third event and receive information about future meetings, you can fill in this form.
Second Edition: Workshop on Social Network Analysis
When: Thursday 27/05/2021, from 9:00-12:30 (Online)
Registration: Here.
We are pleased to invite you to a workshop on social network analysis organized by the Centre for Digital Humanities and The Patio.
In this workshop you will learn the key concepts of network theory and the basics of social network analysis, including some hands-on experience in visualizing network data. The goals of the workshop are:
- Learn the fundamentals of network theory
- Understand the basic methodological characteristics of social network analysis
- Know the characteristics of social network research
- Acquire hands on experience on working with network data
- Have the opportunity to meet colleagues with a shared interest in network research
The workshop is led by Dr Marc Esteve Del Valle and Drs. Silvia Donker.
The registration deadline is May 19. Space is limited, and registration will be on a first-come-first-serve basis.
We hope to see you there!
Patio Meeting #2
The second event of the The Patio will take place on January 14 from 16:00 to 17:00. You can access the event through this link. Below you can see the program of the event:
| Time | Topic |
| 16:00 – 16:30 | Flash introductions |
| 16:30 – 16:50 | Presentation: Dr. Sean White, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen; Andrew Parker, University of Exeter; and Gazi Islam, Grenoble Ecole de Management. Title: Support paths: How support to entrepreneurs fosters prevalent ties (abstract below) |
| 16:50 – 17:00 | Q&A and discussion |
Presentation abstract: Entrepreneurship is increasingly considered as a social phenomenon, where proximal relationships contribute to the emergence of entrepreneurial projects. Complementing extant literature around entrepreneurs’ direct support relationships, we examine how indirect relationships, connecting entrepreneurs’ supporters to third parties, enables support for entrepreneurs. We refer to these combinations of relationships linking entrepreneurs to third parties through supporters as “support paths”. Through Qualitative Structural Analysis, we analyze twenty-two support paths. We suggest that supporting involves the development of relationships that allow actors to frame and embrace ongoing challenges in the wider network. Specifically, we find evidence that supporters respond to entrepreneurs’ signals of need for support as a means to enhance the peculiarity of the support path within and against the larger context of the surrounding network, experienced as pressures, opportunities, and threats. These mechanisms both enable and constrain entrepreneurs’ projects.
If you want a reminder of the second event and receive information about future meetings, you can fill in this form.
Launching Event
The online launching event of The Patio will take place on October 15 at 16:00. You can access the event via this link. The program of the event will be as follows:
| Time | Speaker and topic |
| 16:00-16:10 | Dr. Susan Aasman, (Director Centre for Digital Humanities | Head of Department Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen) Introduction to the initiative |
| 16:10-16:20 | Dr. Marc Esteve Del Valle (Assistant Professor, Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen) The Patio: What, why, how, who? |
| 16:20-16:40 | Drs. Silvia Donker (PhD student in Digital Humanities at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen) Project presentation “The Normalisation of Natural Philosophy” |
| 16:40-17:00 | Q&A and roundtable |
If you want a reminder of the launching event and receive information about future meetings, you can fill in this form.
The Patio: An Interdisciplinary Research Group on Social Networks 