Assortativity and reciprocity
Another two key components of understanding our graphs are reciprocity and degree assort~ativity. Recall that reciprocity is the number of vertices that have connections going in each direction. Therefore, in the retweet graph, reciprocity is measuring the overall amount of nodes that retweet each other. In the mention graph, it will tell us how many nodes are conversing back and forth.
Assortitivity is a bit less obvious. Values greater than 0 indicate that vertices with high degrees tend to be connected to each other. However, values less than zero indicate a more degree disassortative graph. If you visualize the graph and see a hub and spoke type pattern, this is likely to be disassortative.
This exercise is part of the course
Case Studies: Network Analysis in R
Hands-on interactive exercise
Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.
# Find the reciprocity of the retweet graph
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# Find the reciprocity of the mention graph
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