Featured Lendület Researcher: Balázs Lengyel
Nowadays, telecommunications providers and IT companies collect vast amounts of electronic data about us. These databases may contain sensitive personal data, which means they also carry risks, but at the same time they can be an incredibly valuable source of information for the social sciences. Balázs Lengyel, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics of the HUN-REN Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, and his colleagues are analysing some of this data with the support of the Momentum (Lendület) Programme. The researcher has won a Momentum grant for the second time – now in the advanced category – and is currently researching innovation and inequality in dynamic urban networks.
Lengyel has been working as a network analyst for more than ten years, and his research was partly based on the fact that he and his colleagues had access to the database of the much-liked iWiW social network, which was invaluable for mapping out networks of connections. (For the benefit of younger readers: WiW, and later iWiW, was by far the most popular social network in Hungary in the pre-Facebook era, and for years it was also the most visited website. However, it was unable to compete with Facebook in the long run and ceased operations in 2014.)
Relationship networks and development
“I analysed the geography of iWiW from many angles, which is interesting because the iWiW network pretty much described the country’s social network ten years ago. We examined the spatial structure of relationships, the networks of connections within and between cities, and how iWiW spread across Hungary,” said research team leader Lengyel. “We also examined the connections between this network and social phenomena (such as corruption and income inequality).”
Balázs Lengyel Photo: kti.krtk.huAccording to the research group leader, the analysis of iWiW gave him a big boost in his later research to examine the geographical aspects of social networks in greater depth. He had already addressed this issue in his previous Momentum grant, and the main questions of his current advanced grant also focus on how interpersonal networks explain the economic and technological development of cities and regions. According to the researchers’ hypothesis, the flow of information is most effective in an urban environment, which is why cities have become the engines of technological and economic development, where innovation is strongest.
“At the same time, communication between city dwellers is not automatic. We don’t talk to everyone we meet on the tram; communication interactions take place in networks,” the researcher continued. “This is how we exchange information and knowledge with each other. I study networks to better understand how this information transfer works.”
Network analysis provides an excellent methodological framework for this research, as networks formed by close or loose connections can explain why information flows are fast and efficient or slow. The research team previously found that if a social network is fragmented, that is, divided into fairly isolated groups, and if, for example, the advantages enjoyed by the networks of the rich do not reach the networks of the poor, then social inequalities will increase.
Networks not only convey information, but also provide their members with a number of other benefits, which we collectively refer to as social capital.
In an earlier study, Lengyel and his colleagues found that if connections and bridges can be built amongst previously fragmented groups (such as communities of professional fields), this offers great potential which can lead to significant innovations.
Bridges and mobility
“The current, advanced Momentum grant is built around this basic phenomenon, that is, the bridges built between groups in a polarised social network, and we will examine the issue from a number of angles,” said Lengyel. “The first aspect is the process of information transfer, the dynamics of communication, and their potential obstacles. Our question is whether it is helpful in an urban environment for people to be physically close to each other. Is it easier for people who are in the same physical space to form relationships? In theory, personal encounters significantly facilitate communication. Therefore, we will also examine the movement of people between and within cities.”
In addition, another important area of research in the coming years will be the network of scientific and developer collaborations within and across cities. This will mainly involve Hungarian software development companies, with a particular emphasis on examining cooperation amongst programmers. However, the research will also have an international dimension: various online social networks, databases and user data from mobile communications companies, for example, offer an inexhaustible source of information on social networks. For this reason, the Momentum researchers will examine the mobility of people in European and American cities – and these trends will also be supplemented by patterns of connections on Twitter (now known as X).
As it turns out, this research relies largely on data that is accessible to anyone (if, for example, it is based on the use of open source software or patents or scientific publications). At the same time, the analysis of mobile phone or social media data is also significant in the research, which typically have to be requested from the owners of the data (for example, telecommunications and web companies). One criticism that can be levelled at these studies is that they only capture people who use electronic devices, whether they be apps or physical devices such as mobile phones. Researchers are, of course, aware of this and always take this uncertainty and potential bias into account in their studies.
“This problem needs to be addressed, as studies based on mobile phone use obviously exclude those who do not have a mobile phone. This means that the poorest groups in society may be left out of these studies,” admitted Lengyel. “At the same time, we find that mobility data derived from mobile phones, for example, is a good representation of the urban population.”
Of course, this data may include a lot of sensitive personal information, which is why researchers pay the utmost attention to data protection. The most sensitive data can only be analysed in the secure rooms of the HUN-REN Centre for Economic and Regional Studies Data Bank, and nothing can be taken out of the facility. “We take the protection of personal data very seriously. Our research is never aimed at identifying individuals; data that can be linked to individuals is of no interest to us.
We look for general social connections
and, based on these, we try to tell stories from which we can all learn,” said Lengyel.
A témához kapcsolódó cikkeink
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