FRONTIERS
Social graph theories
Guilhem Fouetillou & Anthony HamelleAbstract
Has the monopoly of traditional population segmentation criteria and sampling methods come to an end? Can demographics (employment, age, sex, ethnicity, etc) or behavioural (consumption and cultural habits) criteria be replaced by new "community membership" criteria? Has the "one voice - one vote" principle long lived for market and opinion research? Guilhem Fouetillou and Anthony Hamelle of linkfluence, a social web research institute, will offer creative and sometimes iconoclast perspectives on these issues. Basing themselves on social graph theories, they will share their insight on the importance of links, how they reveal the existence of true opinion communities, how they help single out opinion leaders and what this all means for the research industry.
Guilhem Fouetillou
Guilhem Fouetillou, a graduate engineer from the Compiegne Technology Institute, is linkfluence cofounder. He is currently achieving a PhD in communication and information sciences with the Compiegne Technology Institute. He made important contributions on the influence of the web on major social and political issues (2005 European constitution campaign, French presidential elections in 2007). He is an expert in social data mining and hypertextual communities tracking.
Anthony Hamelle
Anthony Hamelle holds a Master’s degree in media and communications law from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to joining linkfluence, he was head of the corporate communications department of Occurrence, a French-based independent survey institute after having been a corporate communications and public affairs consultant with Euro RSCG C&O (Havas). He is also Vice President of France République, a French think tank.