We Shall Not Only Survive to the Future of Social Networks

Abstract

Networks of social interactions and personal relationships are now digitized within the social Web. It induces new societal uses and new analytic processes such as viral marketing, but surveillance could also play a major role in the future of social networks. The story of social networks analysis started in the early 1930s with Moreno's work introducing sociograms and sociometry for the study of group dynamics. It found a renewal in the ability to treat massive data thanks to computers, more than 50 years later. We propose a double-sided view of the story of social networks, exposing both the economic and societal stakes tied by the common role of specific analytics, toward the multiple futures of social networks.