Chinese City Network Structure in the Cyberspace Based on Social Network Analysis
利用微博数据，通过社交网络分析研究中国城市在网络空间中的中心性和结构特征，发现北京、上海、深圳、广州构成核心圈，且网络空间城市网络与现实经济、交通网络在地理分布上相似。
It has great significance for predicting the evolution of regional city system structure under the influence of ICTs to acknowledge the organizational and structural characteristics of the city network in the cyberspace.This research conclude the centrality and equivalency of different nodes in the city network based on the micro-blog cyberspace,the consistency of the overall network and various urban cluster modes through social network analysis such as centrality analysis,core-periphery analysis and cohesive subgroup analysis.Take the 51-scaled Chinese backbone city network based on the cyberspace as an example.Social network analysis shows that the degree centrality and betweenness centrality demonstrates some differences and complementarities,and there are obvious core-periphery structure characteristics.Beijing,Shanghai,Shenzhen and Guangzhou make up the core circle of Chinese city network based on the cyberspace.The city communities break the single pattern which is based on the geographical distance and takes economic ties as the link.Comparing with city networks based on different kinds of infrastructures,further conclusions of the study can be drew as: The city network based on the cyberspace is similar with economic network and transportation network in the real space in terms of geographical distribution of contact density accumulating area.In addition,city network based on the cyberspace reveals characteristics of high integrated consistency and few branches,which reflects the virtual combined with reality feature of the cyberspace.The social network analysis provides important screening approach of city network structure based on the cyberspace.However,to obtain a more systematic and dynamic result,it requires a combination of other analytical means,which is the direction of further exploration.