CreateDynamicNetwork: Note: this function is DEPRECATED and will be removed in a...
In SocialMediaLab: Tools for Collecting Social Media Data and Generating Networks for Analysis

Description Usage Arguments Details Value Note Author(s) References See Also Examples

Create dynamic networks from social media data (networks that vary over time)

1	CreateDynamicNetwork(x, writeToFile)

`x`	a data frame of class `dataSource` and class `temporal`.
`writeToFile`	logical. If `TRUE` then the network is saved to file in current working directory (GRAPHML format), with filename denoting the current date/time and the type of network.

This function creates a dynamic network from social media data (i.e. from data frames of class dataSource and class temporal).

This function creates a directed network from a data frame of class dataSource and temporal (which are created using the 'CollectTemporalData' family of functions in the SocialMediaLab package).

The resulting dynamic network is an igraph graph object. This graph object is dynamic because all edges in the network have a timestamp attribute expressing their existence as a function of time. Edges are directed and non-weighted (i.e. for each 'interaction' between two vertices there exists an edge with a timestamp attribute). For example, a Facebook user i may 'comment on' post j at time T1 and T2, which is represented by two edges with timestamp attribute T1 and T2, respectively.

An igraph graph object, with directed and non-weighted edges.

Not all data sources in SocialMediaLab can be used for creating dynamic networks.

Currently supported data sources are:

- Facebook

There are three types of edge attributes for timestamp data. The timestamp edge attribute is the timestamp in human readable format. For example, "2015-05-29 19:54:39", in the format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS. The timestampNumeric edge attribute utilises an 'epoch' starting from the timestamp of the oldest comment in the data set, which is given the value 0 (zero). Therefore, the oldest comment in the dataset will become 0 (zero), and all comments thereafter will be assigned a number that represents the number of seconds each comment occurred *after* the 'epoch' comment (i.e. from the zero starting time). The timestampUnixEpoch edge attribute utilises the standard Unix epoch, indicating the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 (i.e. how many seconds after the Unix epoch each commented was posted). This provides the ability to compare different dynamic datasets, perform unions on dynamic networks, etc.

Dynamic networks created using Facebook data are bimodal. This means that there are two types of vertices present in the network (i.e. Facebook users and Facebook posts), with edges representing the time when user i commented on post j. Currently timestamp data is not available through the Facebook API for 'likes' data (i.e. when user i 'likes' post j), so relationships based on 'likes' are excluded from the dynamic network.

Other data sources (e.g. YouTube and Twitter) will be implemented in the future. Additionally, the user is notified if they try to create dynamic networks for incompatible data sources.

Timothy Graham <timothy.graham3@uq.net.au> & Robert Ackland <robert.ackland@anu.edu.au>

Kolaczyk, E. D., Csardi, G. (2014). Statistical analysis of network data with R. New York: Springer, Chapter 10.

See CollectDataFacebook to collect data for creating dynamic networks in SocialMediaLab.

## Not run: 
  ## This example shows how to collect Facebook page data and create a bimodal network

  # Use your own values for myAppID and myAppSecret
  myAppID <- "123456789098765"
  myAppSecret <- "abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123ab"

  # Authenticate with the Facebook API using `AuthenticateWithFacebookAPI`
  fb_oauth <- AuthenticateWithFacebookAPI(appID=myAppID, appSecret=myAppSecret,
    extended_permissions=FALSE, useCachedToken=TRUE)

  # Run the `CollectTemporalDataFacebook` function and
  # store the results in variable `myTemporalFacebookData`
  myTemporalFacebookData <- CollectTemporalDataFacebook(pageName="StarWars",
    rangeFrom="2015-05-14",rangeTo="2015-06-04",verbose=FALSE,writeToFile=FALSE)

  # Create a dynamic 'bimodal' Facebook network using `CreateDynamicNetwork`
  g_bimodal_dynamic_facebook <- CreateDynamicNetwork(myTemporalFacebookData)

  # View descriptive information about the bimodal network
  g_bimodal_facebook

## End(Not run)