Dear Colleagues,

In the past decade, the spectacular rise of online social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, is not only a fascinating social phenomenon in its own right, but also provides social scientists with a new research context to study human interaction at an unprecedented scale. While much is known about the macro-level properties of such networks, modeling behavior and the emergence of online social networks (in such a way as to be based on plausible micro-foundations) remains a challenge.

There is a blossoming game-theoretical literature on social networks discussing the modeling effects of social networks and of their evolution (as the result of strategic interaction between goal-directed individual actors). However, many open questions exist. For example, why do some behaviors spread so rapidly through online networks? Why are collective goods sometimes produced in extensive amounts in online communities (e.g., Wikipedia, Linux)?

We think that the time is right to bring together the research efforts that attempt to explain behavior in online social networks using game-theoretical models. We welcome contributions that propose game-theoretical models for behavior in online social networks. We also welcome empirical studies, such as online experiments, observational studies using online data, and laboratory experiments that test the implications of game-theoretical models on behavior in online social networks.

Prof. Dr. Vincent Buskens

Dr. Rense Corten
Guest Editors

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• online social networks
• behavior on networks
• network formation
• theoretical models
• experiments
• online data