Social network analysis
The field of social contagion has been repeatedly criticised for lacking a clear and widely accepted definition, and for sometimes involving work that does not distinguish between contagion and other forms of social influence, like command and compliance, or from homophily. In Social network analysis and related Network science fields, the contagion metaphor has been described as potentially misleading in various ways. For example, an actual virus can effect someone after a single exposure, whereas typically with social contagion, people need several exposures before adopting the new behaviour or emotion. Some scholars, e.g. Ralph H. Turner have suggested that certain types of collective behaviour are better understood by Emergent norm theory or Convergence theory, rather than by social contagion.