Quant versus Qual

Social Network Analysis as an ethnographic tool

The Old Regime

• One question to one person could be important

• Lots of questions, lots of people, usually not feasible

• Hypothesis-testing or exploratory research1

n

m

Num

ber

of people

Number of questions

Quantitative(Hypothesis

testing)

Qualitative(Exploratory)

Usually not feasible!

Could be important!

Then, Computers

• Simulations support creation of complex models (not our topic today)

• Data mining searches for patterns in large quantities of data (getting close)

• Social network analysis (SNA) drives ethnographic research (today’s proposition)

SNA Focus

• Social ties versus institutional structures

• Interactions versus rules

• Transmission of behavior, attitudes, information or goods

• Constraints and opportunities emerging as ties are created or destroyed

SNA Origins

UrbanAnthropology

SocialPsychology

Graph Theory

• Mathematics of structures composed of lines and nodes

• Sociometry, balance theory, “six degrees”

• Social network formation among urban migrants in Central Africa

Winner’s CirclesCreative networks in Japan

John McCreery

The ImageDentsu

Hakuhodo

ADK

Other

We can see the overall shape in the distance, but what about the underlying geology?

全面的な形が大ざっぱで見えるけど、裏の地理学的な細かい動きと関係は、どうだろう？

The Objective

• To understand the social networks of the creators who comprise the winning teams in ad contests in Japan.

• 日本の広告コンクールの勝ち組のクリェイターの社会ネットワーク（人間関係）。

The Planデータ源泉

(TCC 年鑑)

Social Network Analysis(SNA)

資料分析

取材（インタビュー）

データは、TCC 年鑑から採りました。今現在、２００１，２００４，２００６　年のデータをFilemaker Pro

9.0　のdatabaseに入れておきました。Data from Tokyo Copywriters Club Annuals

データ処理のために、UCINETとPAJEKというソフトを使っています。Data processing using UCINET and PAJEK (also DataDesk and Numbers)

少しずつ、有名なクリェイターの本と文書を集めて、読んで、分析しています。Analysis of published materials by and about creators at key nodes

理想なんですけど、本人に出会う、取材して、「いい、な」と考えております。Interviews with creators at key nodes to go over findings and elicit their interpretation

Filemaker Data-AdsFilemaker Data Entry Page

Filemaker Data-Roles

Roles Link Creators to Ads

01-Creators-Ads-All 2-mode network of composed of all ads and creators in 2001

01-Creators-Agencies-All 2-mode (creator-agency) network showing structure of industry

01-JMaki(k=2)Agencies-All Everyone within two steps of copywriter Maki Jun

01-JMaki-Ads-AllMaki’s projects and the people he worked with in 2001

Maki Jun—Winning Ads 2001

Maki Jun-01 (Ads 26-29)

• Wa-i-suki (Whiskey = I like Wa, i.e. peace, harmony, things Japanese)

• With the hostess, with the wife

Maki Jun-01 (Ad 190)

• Finding work, It’s not a marriage. It’s a love affair.

Maki Jun-01 (Ads 265-66)

• Humanity. From Age 20 to Age 21.

• Connecting one person to another,connecting one voice to another,connecting J-PHONE and DWH.CTC.

Maki Jun-01 (Ad 292)

• Onward, to a borderless country of dreams

• 夢国籍: A pun on 無国籍, stateless=

borderless

Maki Jun-01 (Ad 358)

• I hate silica houses. (Mold)

• Come outside and we’ll get you (Fleas)

Maki Jun-01 (Ad 569)

• Any feeling can become copy

Maki Jun-Books

Quant vs Qual: Science vs Critique?

• On Anthro-L an argument has once again erupted, pitting those who defend science against postmodern critique with those, like me who believe the critique should be taken seriously — without abandoning the methods that have made science the most powerful knowledge-generating tool in human history.

Some Final Thoughts• In my own case, I believe strongly that the proper response to the postmodern critique is to embrace it and think

about how to do something approximating science in an intensely personal way. So I try to do research that both (1) systematically collects data and constantly questions hypotheses and (2) shows a proper respect for the individuality of the people who collaborate with me and the circumstances in which our lives intersect.

• So, for example, in my current project I take advantage of data collected for other purposes that allow me to identify precisely the people with whom a copywriter named Maki Jun worked on winning ads in 2001 and situate them on a map of relationships that tie the top of an industry together. But I don't want to leave Maki as nothing more than a labeled node in a network analysis diagram. I want people to know that, like me, he grew up beside the sea and played the trombone in a high school band. They should also know that he has recently published a book suggesting that advertising copy, with its business suit removed, is a new form in a long tradition of one-line poetry that includes haiku, tanka, and senryu, all traditional forms of poetry for which Japanese literature is justly renowned. He is a man addicted, as I am, to wordplay and a genuine master of the art.

• Maki’s latest book is prefaced with the line kotoba no happa wa, itsuka ki ni naru mori ni naru (the leaves on words sometimes become a forest), which pivots on his substitution of the Chinese character for "tree" for the usual character for "breath" in the phrase ki ni naru, turning "notice and are concerned about" into "become trees, become a forest" (a more literal way to translate the way the line ends). The whole thing is set off because the ba in kotoba (word) is written with the Chinese character for "leaf." So the whole thing might have been rendered "The leaves in "spoken-leaves" (words) sometimes become trees, become forests."

• Today, I use Maki as an example because I had the privilege of meeting with him a few days ago and am in a glow because he has agreed to lend a hand with my project. But, returning to our starting point, what I love about this research is that the way it uses both the numerate and literate sides of my brain and produces both the elegance of the structural diagrams and insight into the thoughts and lives of some truly extraordinary people. That’s anthropology to me.