Relational Event Modeling

Instructor: Andy Pilny

Most tools for social network analysis examine relational states, otherwise known as enduring and stable ties like flows, similarities, affinities, and roles. However, it is also important to consider relational events, otherwise known as episodic and interactional events from a sender to a target, measured at a specific timestamp or ordered level. Many communication forms, from emails, Tweets, Facebook likes, to conversational turn-taking, can be viewed under a relational event framework. The current workshop provides an introduction to relational event modeling, a method used to determine the dominant patterns underlying a relational event history using the R program relevent. The ego-centric relational event model is also covered using the informR package, which models event sequences within an individual or group. The workshop will cover a brief history of relational event modeling, tutorial source code, example data, and limitations.