Social Network Analysis as Mixed Analysis

Social network analysis (SNA) has become an important theoretical and methodological framework to investigate research questions in both the social and natural sciences. In this chapter, the authors discuss the foundations of social network analysis as mixed analysis. Onwuegbuzie and Hitchcock highlighted the potential to integrate qualitative and quantitative strands of network research, and described the method as quantitative-dominant crossover mixed analysis. As noted by Hollstein, qualitative data collection and analysis can facilitate social network analysis because qualitative data can "explicate the problem of agency, linkages between network structure and network actors, as well as questions relating to the constitution and dynamics of social networks". More information about the historical development of social network analysis can be found in Freeman. Social network analysis appears a useful method to investigate the contagion among people