Social Network

 The research on social networks and collaborative strategies has highlighted from the mid of 1980 which has contributed to the success and development of firms. The relationship and communication with trade partners in overseas help success of firms in entering to foreign markets and improve new partners and new markets abroad. Doing firm internationalization in foreign countries faces some barriers in external environment. These firms also face a lack of resources and capabilities and unprotected against environmental changes. Export managers through relational aspects of social network able to overcome the challenges and expand success in their internationalizing firms. The aims of this paper is to survey the correlation between internationalization orientation such as inward and outward internationalization and relational elements of social network such as trust, favor and friendship among Malaysian manufacturing firms exporting to the countries surrounding the Persian Gulf. The data was collected from 120 manufacturing firms in Malaysia by using a mail survey. The findings illustrate that two operations of internationalization means inward and outward internationalization orientation are positively and significantly correlated with all dimensions of relational elements means trust, favor and friendship. The results of this study can contribute to internationalizing firms and enhances relational marketing knowledge.        JEL Classification: F55, L10 

This study examined the effectiveness of Telegram social network on the writing performance of adult English as foreign language (EFL) learners at intermediate level. To achieve this, Oxford Quick Placement Test (2004) was administered to 46 EFL learners at Zaban-e No language institute in Talesh, Iran. Those who met the selection criterion, i.e., performed one standard deviation above and below the mean on the test were divided into two classes (n = 30): control group (n = 15) and experimental group (n = 15). Participants in the experimental group were provided with writing instruction and contributed cooperatively to the task of writing through Telegram for 8 weeks (2 sessions each week, and 90 minutes per session) while the control group underwent a traditional instruction of writing. Pretests and posttests of writing task were administered and t tests were used to compare means of test scores within and between groups. The results revealed that while the two groups were homogeneous in terms of their writing performance before the treatment, the experimental group outperformed the control group on the posttest. That is, teaching writing through the Telegram social network was a significantly effective model to improve EFL learners' writing performance.

Purpose: Technologies in general and media in particular influence their audience through their form and content. There are many studies about the role and effect of classic media on values change; however, few studies have explored new emergent media such as social networks. The aim of this descriptive-survey research is to investigate how time spent on social network and social network addiction is related to value system of students. Methodology: Statistical population consisted of all students studying at higher education institutes in Bojnord during 2015-16 academic years. A sample of 229 students was selected using cluster-random sampling. Data was analyzed using SPSS 19 software. Findings: Findings revealed a negative significant relationship between the use of social network and social network addiction on the one hand, and the value system of students on the other hand. This finding held true for religious, cultural, political and social components of the value system, except for economic component. Discussion: According to these findings, higher education should pay greater attention to promoting media literacy of students.

Purpose: The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between social health and the usage of social networks among the parents of female students in Baharestan. Methodology: For this purpose, 370 parents (172 males and 198 females) were selected randomly through cluster sampling based on kerjeci & Morgan's table. Then, the social health questionnaire developed by Keyes and Shapiro (2004) and social networks using questionnaire which is a researcher-made questionnaire was completed. Findings: The results of convergent and divergent validity, composite reliability, Cronbach's alpha, average variance extracted, factor analysis, Stone-Geisser's criterion, goodness of fit, and independent t-test revealed that there was a significant relationship between all the components of social health (i.e. social integration, social coherence, social actualization, social acceptance, and social contribution) and the usage of social networks. Accordingly, social health explains 42% of the usage of social networks. As regards the components, the percentages are social integration (86%), social coherence (52%), social actualization (25%), social acceptance (44%), and social contribution (36%). In addition, no significant relationship was found between gender and usage. There was a positive and significant relationship between virtual social network and the components of physical health and general health scales, physical function, physical role, and physical pain. Social health refers to how a person's relationship is with others in a society is, or to his socialization. Conclusion: social health is one of the three components (plus physical and mental health) of general health

Discovering important nodes in graph data attracted a lot of attention. Social networks are good examples of graph data in which each node represents a person and each edge represents a relationship between two people. There are several methods for the task of discovering important nodes in graph data. In this paper, important people are defined with their roles in society or organization. We propose an efficient method to discover leaders in graph network. For this purpose, both structural feature like entropy and inherent features including from, to, subject and message's time of social networks are used to propose a novel method for discovering important nodes in social networks. The proposed method was applied to Enron dataset and compared with previous methods. The proposed method succeeded to first, discover more important roles in Enron dataset, second, determine CEO as leader of Enron Corporation and third, discover two out of four CEOs among top VIPs.

Knowing the current public opinion and predicting its trend using opinion formation models is very applicable. The social impact model of opinion formation is a discrete binary opinion model. It describes how interactions among individuals and sharing their opinions about a specific topic in a social network affect the dynamics of their opinions and form the opinion of society. The society could be an online social network. In this research, we considered the effect of segregation on opinion formation. Segregation is a phenomenon that happens due to homophily and is measured based upon network topology. Homophily is the tendency of individuals to interact with others who share similar traits. We used scale-free networks to model interactions between individuals. The social impact model includes a noise parameter, which is the stochastic part of the model, dealing with the inexplicable behavior of individuals and the effects of other influentials, e.g., mass media. Since this noise is a white noise with no bias toward any possible opinion, for simplicity, we assumed a noise-free social impact model, which is valid in equilibrium analysis we considered. The results reveal that with the same attributes for the individuals, the more segregated opinion group dominates the less segregated opinion group on average. Therefore, with the same population size and individual characteristics of both opinion groups, segregation is an overall influential factor for opinion formation. A more segregated opinion group attracts some individuals from the other group and becomes the majority opinion group of society in equilibrium.

Instagram is considered one of the most famous virtual social networks among all ages of human beings. Nowadays, the extensive popularity of social networking websites such as Instagram has made new chances for Iranian English teachers and learners. Accordingly, the present study tries to investigate whether Instagram would be a useful learning instrument of vocabulary for Iranian male EFL learners at the pre-intermediate at Shokouh Enghelab English Academy in Babol, Mazandaran, Iran. The participants in this study were 50 male EFL learners, ranging from 8-15 years old, selected randomly from 100 cases. After checking the homogeneity of the participants, they were divided into two groups. The participants in the experimental group were learning English vocabulary through ten Instagram pages for four weeks (12 sessions and 25 minutes per session). But the participants in the control group were only taught by the teacher. Pretest and posttest were applied to evaluate learners' knowledge about vocabulary during the session. Based on the research data, Instagram learning brings valuable technological and pedagogical advantages for Iranian EFL learners despite the popularity of social networks. It has a significantly positive effect on the development of  vocabulary learning. The findings of this paper can be helpful in the English methodology issue.

Technology-supported collaborative writing has gained popularity in L2 writing pedagogy. The study investigated the effects of Edmodo as an online social platform on the writing accuracy of 50 Iranian intermediate EFL learners, who were chosen through the convenience sampling method. The researchers utilized a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design and assigned the participants to an experimental and a control group. The participants of the control group sent their assignments and received feedback asynchronously through email; whereas, the learners of the experimental group used Edmodo to work collaboratively on their writing assignments. Finally, after eight treatment sessions, the scores of the pretest and posttest were analyzed through using a paired-sample t-test and MANOVA. The results revealed that the application of Edmodo had a significant effect on writing accuracy. Moreover, the participants’ attitudes were assessed by running a Likert-scale questionnaire. According to the findings, they had a positive attitude towards integrating Edmodo into their writing curriculum. This study could bring about pedagogical implications for EFL writing courses.

Today, with the development of urbanization and increased abnormal behaviors, particularly urban crimes, prevention of social harms is of great importance. Social Sciences and Urban Development can prevent crime in urban areas by understanding cultural and social traits alongside other actions, in a way that the wrongdoer finds less opportunity for acting a criminal behavior in urban areas. The theory of social capital is intrinsically simple and affecting many other components. The core idea of social capital can be found and summed up in the word "relationship". Members of the community can cooperate and work together through making contacts with each other sustaining this relation. And thus they learn things that cannot be easily achieved alone or is hard-won. Humans are linked through a series of interconnected networks and tend to have values in common with other members of the network. And by expanding networks constitute an asset that can be considered as a form of capital. Obviously, the more people get to know each other and the more common outlook is found within them, we'll have a richer social capital. On this basis, this research will examine social capital in two dimensions, cultural (types of the trust) and structural (social participation and emotional and material support of network). And tries to study the relationship between social capital and social problems in the Pardis new city after explaining the concept of social capital; This research was conducted with survey method using a questionnaire technique. The statistical populations of the study are residents of Pardis new town, who have been selected though a random cluster sampling method. The sample size was determined as 400 people using Cochran Formula and finally data analysis was done with SPSS Software. The results show that increasing social capital components (cooperation, solidarity and social relations), social problems in new towns is reduced.

This paper focuses on the role of influencers as an element of modern governance. As the fields of media, entertainment industry, and politics become increasingly interconnected, the phenomenon of influencer potentially affects many aspects of political life, such as campaigning and voting, policymaking, and international affairs. Using the network analysis method and applying a triple typification of influencers consists of media influencers, influencer politicians in power, and influencer opposition politicians out of power, and selecting 245 nodes on Instagram accounts, the article focuses on how do influencers interact within communication networks? Based on the triple typification, the article tries to find the pattern of networked political communications between influencers in the social network. The results prove that all three types of influencers are more interested in intra-group communication. However, both influencer politicians in power and influencer opposition politicians out of power have relatively similar tendencies to associate with media influencers.

Content interpretation is a cognitive ability which is mostly concerned with understanding the intention of the person who has created or narrated the content.  Narrator is also important since his/ her specific intention, which is inevitable in media like a social network, may change the reality of a created content. Here, the focal point is a sort of transformation with the aim of yielding the class of a message behind the content. In this paper, we propose a rule-based framework for interpreting contents in a social network that has the ability to perform such a transformation through using some generic rules with propositions at high abstraction level. The reason for selecting abstract propositions is their ability in covering wide range of facts occurring in the real world situation. Our suggested framework is in reality able to determine the class of a message indicating the possible intention of either a content’s creator or its narrator, such as whether a narrator is seeking honesty/justice toward the others, is after respect for the people, cares for compassion/ mercy, emphasizes a significance of knowing/ thinking in life, or is after self-upgradation to conduct a healthy life. These classes of message are determined according to both philosophical and psychological aspects which do exist behind the cognitive, emotional and ethical faculties in human being. Results of some experiments show that the generic rules proposed in this paper, which are structured on the ground of abstract propositions, have enough ability to respond successfully to the issue of interpretation in a social network with the characteristics already mentioned. Also, these results approve the fact that such an abstraction is able enough to handle the possible facts hidden in the contents showing up in social network.