Visual analysis of dynamic group membership in temporal social networks

Abstract

C-Group is a tool for analyzing dynamic group membership in temporal social networks over time. Unlike most network visualization tools, which show the group structure within an entire network, or the group membership for a single actor, C-Group allows users to focus their analysis on a pair of individuals. While C-Group allows for viewing the addition and deletion of nodes (actors) and edges (relationships) over time, its major contribution is its focus on changing group memberships over time. By doing so, users can investigate the context of temporal group memberships for the pair. C-Group provides users with a flexible interface for defining (and redefining) groups interactively, and supports two novel visual representations of the evolving group memberships. This flexibility gives users alternate views that are appropriate for different network sizes and provides users with different insights into the grouping behavior. We demonstrate the utility of the tool on a scientific publication network.