A social network is a network of meanings

A story is at root an authority, a transfer of identity, which explains its close correspondence to network tie.

—Harrison White, Identity and Control (1992), observing that social network ties emerge from stories, “stories describe ties in social networks,” and “stories are essential vehicles for elaborating networks so as to become the base for further formations.”

Society is not merely an aggregate of individuals; it is the sum of the relations in which these individuals stand to one another.
—Marx (1857)