While sociologists have studied social networks for about one hundred years, recent developments in data, technology, and methods of analysis provide opportunities for social network analysis (SNA) to play a prominent role in the new research world of big data and computational social science (CSS). In our review, we focus on four broad topics: (1) Collecting Social Network Data from the Web, (2) Non‐traditional and Bipartite/Multi‐mode Networks, including Discourse and Semantic Networks, and Social‐Ecological Networks, (3) Recent Developments in Statistical Inference for Networks, and (4) Ethics in Computational Network Research.

Community gardens can bring many benefits to community members, including access to healthy, affordable foods and opportunities for social interaction. Less certain, however, is their contribution to neighbourhood resilience to crime. To date, few studies have focused on the ability of community gardens – as distinct from other types of green spaces – to promote social organization and reduce local crime. Findings of studies that do so are inconclusive, and at best suggestive of gardens’ crime-deterring effects. The present study spotlights community gardens as unique spaces promoting social capital development and attachment to place, testing the effect of new community gardens in Vancouver, BC. Using neighbourhood census data from 2005 to 2015, the effects of new community gardens, as well as median income, population size, homeownership, and ethnic diversity, on property crime are assessed with multilevel modeling. The results show significant negative effects of median income, population size, and new community gardens on crime, with the addition of just one garden reducing neighbourhood crime by approximately 49 counts, and with increases in population size (by 1,000 individuals) and median income (by CAD$1,000) lowering crime by 48 and 34 counts, respectively.

How do we include animals in sociology? Although sociology’s initial avoidance of the nonhuman world may have been necessary to the field’s development, recent scholarship – within mainstream sociology, environmental sociology and animal-centred research – is helping expand the field’s horizons. With a focus on variety, this article reviews four key paths that researchers are taking to include animals in their research: (1) studying interspecies relations, (2) theorizing animals as an oppressed group, (3) investigating the social and ecological impacts of animal agriculture and (4) analysing social-ecological networks. This review shows how applying – and innovating – existing social theories and research methods allows researchers to include animals in their analyses and will be relevant to a variety of scholars, including mainstream and environmental sociologists, animal-focused researchers and social network analysts, to name a few.

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