Social Networks of Meaning and Communication

Social structures can be fruitfully studied as networks of social relationships. These should not be conceptualized, and examined, as stable, acultural patterns of ties. Building on relational sociology around Harrison White, the book examines the interplay of social networks and meaning. Social relationships consist of dynamic bundles of expectations about the behavior between particular actors. These expectations come out of the process of communication, and they make for the regularity and predictability of communication, reducing its inherent uncertainty. Like all social structures, relationships and networks are made of expectations that guide social processes, but that continuously change as the result of these processes. Building on Niklas Luhmann, the events in networks can fruitfully be conceptualized as communication, the processing of meaning between actors (rather than emanating from them). Communication draws on a variety of cultural forms to define and negotiate the relationships between actors: relationship frames like “love” and “friendship” prescribe the kinds of interaction appropriate for types of tie; social categories like ethnicity and gender guide the interaction within and between categories of actors; and collective and corporate actors form on the basis of cultural models like “company,” “bureaucracy,” “street gang,” or “social movement.” Such cultural models are diffused in systems of education and in the mass media, but they also institutionalize in communication, with existing patterns of interaction and relationships serving as models for others. Social groups are semi-institutionalized social patterns, with a strong social boundary separating their members from the social environment.