Applying Social Networks to Snowball Sampling of a ‘Hard-to-Reach’ Population and to Illustrate Qualitative Findings

Ever since Moreno's sociograms were introduced in the 1930s, social network analysis has been a popular way of analysing existing and custom-built data. Social network analysis has been gaining popularity since online social networks were invented with their ever-increasing volumes of social media data available to extract and analyse. This paper explores using social networks as part of the methodology and data analysis stages of an existing research project. The research concerns victims of online crime asking who individuals and organisations can approach for cybersecurity help and advice after becoming online crime victims. Participants worked in UK law enforcement, government, businesses and support organisations. Two networks were built and analysed. The recruitment network monitored snowball sampling of a ‘hard-to-reach’ population-UK adults whose work concerned victims of online crime or who were online crime victims. The organisations' network described the landscape for supporting victims. The recruitment network tracked the recruitment of participants and highlighted successful and influential contacts in the network. The organisations' network explained and illustrated the qualitative findings. Social networks give insights into data missed by other methods of analysing data collected. Sociograms were added to text-based sections in the doctoral thesis to help explain the inherent messiness of the interdisciplinary field of cybercrime.