Hybrid centrality measures for binary and weighted networks

Abstract

Existing centrality measures for social network analysis suggest the importance of an actor and give consideration to actor's given structural position in a network. These existing measures suggest specific attribute of an actor (i.e., popularity, accessibility, and brokerage behavior). In this study, we propose new hybrid centrality measures (i.e., Degree-Degree, Degree-Closeness and Degree-Betweenness), by combining existing measures (i.e., degree, closeness and betweenness) with a proposition to better understand the importance of actors in a given network. Generalized set of measures are also proposed for weighted networks. Our analysis of co-authorship networks dataset suggests significant correlation of our proposed new centrality measures (especially weighted networks) than traditional centrality measures with performance of the scholars. Thus, they are useful measures which can be used instead of traditional measures to show prominence of the actors in a network. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.