The fourth speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Jessica Kühn, whose focus is on adolescents’ egocentric networks on social media platforms. This draws on the qualitative network analysis method (QNA), which focusses on an individual’s network as an egocentric, personal network, and on the individual’s perceptions of that network as well as on the perceptions of their contacts.
This surfaces which network contacts matter to the central individual, how, and why, and helps us to analyse the embeddedness of individuals within their social environment. But it is a complex and work-intensive method – most studies capture only the perspective of the central individual, and therefore remain one-sided; the views of their contacts are as valid and important, however.
This project examined 20 egocentric networks of adolescents, and interviewed them, their two best friends, one parent, and one teacher, across four German states; schematic network maps were used to guide these discussions, allowing interviewees to place their various contacts on a symbolic network map and discuss their placement choices. Differences between the central individual’s and their contacts’ perceptions of these network maps, and of the roles played by specific social media platforms in this, are often quite revealing.
This method provides some deep insights into the norm negotiation and mediation process experienced by adolescents, then; it encourages self-reflection on one’s own actions, and advances beyond a merely unidirectional view. Comparisons between perceptions and evaluations within and across networks are especially valuable. The method requires considerable effort in recruitment, research ethics and confidentiality, data collection, and analysis, however.
