Professor David Knoke's New Book, "Multimodal Political Networks"
UMN Sociology Professor David Knoke (w/coauthors Mario Diani, University of Trento, Italy; James Hollway, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva; and Dimitris Christopoulos, MU Vienna and Edinburgh Business School) has a new book published by Cambrodge University Press, "Multimodal Political Networks."
Research on social networks has become a significant area of investigation in the social sciences, and social network concepts and tools are widely employed across many subfields within the field. This volume introduces political theorists and researchers to new theoretical, methodological, and substantive tools for extending political network research into new realms and revitalizing established domains. The authors synthesize new understandings of multimodal political networks, consisting of two or more types of social entities - voters, politicians, parties, events, organizations, nations - and the complex relations between them. They discuss ways to theorize about multimodal connections, methods for measuring and analyzing multimodal datasets, and how the results can reveal new insights into political structures and action. Several empirical applications demonstrate in great detail how multimodal analysts can detect and visualize political communities consisting of diverse social entities.