Fuzzy social network analysis for network clustering of members of the Thai parliament

Social Network Analysis is a method to analyze relationships among members in a society. There are three types of social network data that determine the linkages in each pair of the members; firstly, the dichotomous data, which presents a link with I and an absence with 0, secondly, the value data, which provides the frequency of interactions. In the thirdly, it called sign data that shows either positive relation with or negative relation with "-". In our framework, fuzzy relation is proposed as a new type of social network data, in which the sign and dichotomous data are replaced by degrees of relationships. Because human inserts, feelings into his verbal communications, the framework emphasizes on positive and negative opinions of human towards a set of third-party objects. Such opinions are then used to analyze the relationships among human subjects. A system that analyzes a social network of Thai MPs has been implemented to verify the validity of the proposed fuzzy social network framework.