Self-similar community structure in a network of human interactions

The results reveal the self-organization of the network into a state where the distribution of community sizes is self-similar, suggesting that a universal mechanism, responsible for emergence of scaling in other self-organized complex systems, as, for instance, river networks, could also be the underlying driving force in the formation and evolution of social networks.

Abstract

We propose a procedure for analyzing and characterizing complex networks. We apply this to the social network as constructed from email communications within a medium sized university with about 1700 employees. Email networks provide an accurate and nonintrusive description of the flow of information within human organizations. Our results reveal the self-organization of the network into a state where the distribution of community sizes is self-similar. This suggests that a universal mechanism, responsible for emergence of scaling in other self-organized complex systems, as, for instance, river networks, could also be the underlying driving force in the formation and evolution of social networks.