Conference Agenda

Since its emergence in the 1920s, multi-level marketing (MLM) has been based on a dual principle: the direct selling of products and services and the recruitment of new members through co-optation. Marketed as a vehicle for empowerment and flexibility, this business model is now presented as a response to the search for meaning at work, particularly in the digital era. However, very few participants manage to generate substantial earnings. How can the sustained engagement of individuals in MLM networks be explained, given the frequent absence of financial remuneration, while they continue to perceive these networks as a source of personal and professional fulfilment? Drawing on an undercover participant observation conducted in two MLM networks between 2021 and 2024, this study explores how these structures function as spaces for social resources – material, affective, and cognitive – that shape members’ subjective well-being. In the first network, predominantly female and focused on the sale of cosmetics, MLM is perceived as "an activity of one’s own" providing an escape from family and wage labor constraints, while enabling individual self-expression through work. In the second network, specializing in financial investment and primarily composed of young men from underprivileged Parisian suburbs, the pursuit of well-being is grounded in adherence to a virilist entrepreneurial model that promotes discipline and self-transcendence. By combining an analysis of social resources and relational dynamics, this contribution examines how these networks influence perceptions of well-being and individual success.

This work develops a theoretical and methodological framework for analyzing spatially embedded social networks to better understand how collective efficacy emerges through everyday spatial interactions grounded in local needs. Traditional economic and social exchange models emphasize market-based paradigms of individual rationality and competition, often overlooking the geographic and network structures that facilitate local cooperation, resource access, and subjective well-being. This research examines how spatial mobility and social network structures interact to shape localized perceptions of need satisfaction and collective efficacy in urban neighborhoods.

The study integrates spatial and social network analysis through a novel interactive map-based survey tool that models three interconnected spatial network structures:

1)Street-based mobility networks, representing spatial constraints on movement and access.

2)Resident–point-of-interest affiliation networks, capturing geographic resource access.

3)Community efficacy social networks, revealing social ties weighted by subject collective valuations.

This approach models how geographic space and social resources reciprocally structure each other and activate social capital. By linking spatial constraints, network topology, and subjective experiences, this research contributes new geospatial methods for modeling embedded urban social networks, offering insights into how spatial affordances and social inequalities shape access to collective resources and regenerative capacities.

This work advances spatial network analysis, urban sociology, and participatory design research by proposing an integrated framework for visualizing and measuring social networks in geographic space. By highlighting the role of spatially embedded social ties in fostering collective efficacy in heterogeneous resource environments, it offers new methodological and conceptual tools for strengthening community resilience and well-being through place-based network structures.

In the study of inequality, a common finding is that people do rather poorly at assessing the scale of inequality in their societies. Relatedly, the study of subjective social status emphasises how people’s perception of their own relative position may differ from, and may be more salient than, their “objective” position. Here, we explore how people may be formulating their conception of their own social worlds and their position within it, by drawing on rich geospatial, demographic, economic, and social network data from two communities in South Asia (one in India and one in Nepal). Adult residents in these communities were asked not only a series of name generators for multiple types of social support, but also the “MacArthur Ladder”, placing themselves on one of ten rungs relative to others in their community. We first describe how residents’ reported subjective social status is associated with various attributes (e.g., education, gender, caste, wealth). We then use our geospatial and network data to construct different plausible social worlds that each respondent may be envisioning when considering their relative status: what if they considered only their neighbours? Their immediate social connections? Their friends-of-friends? We further consider if certain relationship types are particularly consequential in aligning people’s perceptions to their “true” status and the inequality of their community, and whether network positions facilitate “accuracy” in perceptions. With these insights, we contribute to the growing body of work aimed at understanding people’s perceptions of and preferences regarding inequality.

Parents of school age children struggled during COVID-19 pandemic school closures. The stress, uncertainty, and role conflict they experienced placed strain on their own wellbeing. Parents reported an increase in stress, loneliness, depression, anxiety, fear, and guilt due to pandemic pressures. One way parents mitigate these effects during a disaster is by activating social capital through networks, however, pandemic-induced quarantine orders created barriers to in-person forms of social support.

Faced with these barriers, how was the wellbeing of parents impacted by the strains of the pandemic? Were parents able to access social networks, and if so, in what ways? How did networks mitigate wellbeing outcomes? This mixed methods study explores these questions using in-depth interviews and social network analysis to understand the resource networks of parents of school-aged children during the pandemic (n=29).

Parents identified members of their support networks and the forms of support that flowed through these networks. To measure the strength of each ego network, a strength indicator was developed using eight network characteristics. Strength scores were analyzed against mental health strain (a composite of stress, wellbeing, and worry scales) to examine how network strength may act as a buffer to strain during the pandemic.

Social network analysis uncovered how parents utilized their traditional social networks and formed new support networks to foster resilience. Parents experiencing greater levels of strain had weaker social networks (i.e. smaller, less diverse, fragmented) than their peers. Results illuminate the ways networks can protect parents’ subjective wellbeing.

Despite the prevalence of a high-choice media environment, individuals with lower income, education, and political interests consume less news than those with higher levels. Individuals with lower news consumption are limited in political participation due to insufficient access to information, and it has been considered an important issue regarding equal opportunities for political participation. While prior studies have focused on groups with low news consumption, this study contributes to discussion by exploring the impact of personality traits (e.g., openness, extraversion) and well-being (e.g., lifestyle, mental health, life satisfaction, daily patterns) on gaps in news consumption.

This study forms news consumption gap networks for each year (2021 - 2023) and develops a stochastic actor-oriented model, using the Korea Media Panel Survey. The networks are formed as an undirected binary network based on differences in respondents’ news exposure scores, which are measured by aggregating responses on the primary use of news through platforms such as OTT services, SNS, and TV.

Based on this approach, the study expects that matches in personality and differences in well-being characteristics will widen the gap in news consumption over time. It suggests that negativity in the news leads to less news consumption among individuals with certain personality traits, and it discusses the journalistic news values of negativity. It also proposes that well-being characteristics significantly influence the stratification of news consumption, providing complementary insights not fully explained by income, education, and political interest. Ultimately, this study discusses the implications of well-being for political inequality and the information gaps.