Abstract:
Social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook have
recently emerged to play key roles in crucial aspects of our lives.
In this regard, the question of how to model the relationships
between users on the online interactive platform has become
important because it forms a basis for abstracting a social
network using social network data. Furthermore, user to user
relationship definition gives a more convinient way to represent
tie strength between users. The analysis of the tie strength
provides a better way to gauge how important users are to one
another.
In this paper, we conduct a survey on the various approaches
that researchers of social network analysis have applied in
modelling relationships between users. Several approaches have
been discussed and we have pointed out the challenges and
benefits associated with some of the approaches. We have shown
how the individual relationship models fit into the bigger models
of social influence, which is a major subject of research on social
networks. Finally we have recommended future research for some
areas that do not seem to have been addressed yet.