Principes et usages des dessins de réseaux en SHS

Network visualizations are now very popular: they are apparently simple to read and many tools allow making them easily. This success invites us to examine the nature of this kind of representations. It was designed in the last century in the context of social research focusing on the study of social interactions. The history of network layouts allows us to understand their building principles and their status in research contexts. This point of view is essential to make a rational use of these visualizations, especially while technical developments are transforming them into a powerful tool for relational data exploration