Related papers: Algorithmic bias amplifies opinion polarization: A…
Accurately simulating human opinion dynamics is crucial for understanding a variety of societal phenomena, including polarization and the spread of misinformation. However, the agent-based models (ABMs) commonly used for such simulations…
Deliberative processes are often discussed as increasing or decreasing polarization. This approach misses a different, and arguably more diagnostic, dimension of opinion change: whether deliberation reshuffles who agrees with whom, or…
Some political strategies to win elections over the last years were based heavily on fomenting general distrust in information institutions and favoring distrustful sources. The misinformation pandemic has the straightforward consequence…
We study the joint evolution of worldviews by proposing a model of opinion dynamics, which is inspired in notions from evolutionary ecology. Agents update their opinion on a specific issue based on their propensity to change -- asserted by…
The abundance of information on social media has reshaped public discussions, shifting attention to the mechanisms that drive online discourse. This study analyzes large-scale Twitter (now X) data from three global debates--Climate Change,…
In this paper, the effect on collective opinions of filtering algorithms managed by social network platforms is modeled and investigated. A stochastic multi-agent model for opinion dynamics is proposed, that accounts for a centralized…
Digital communication has made the public discourse considerably more complex, and new actors and strategies have emerged as a result of this seismic shift. Aside from the often-studied interactions among individuals during opinion…
In recent years, social media has increasingly become an important platform for political campaigns, especially elections. It remains elusive how exactly public discourse is driven by the intricate interplay between individual…
Models of continuous opinion dynamics under bounded confidence show a sharp transition between a consensus and a polarization phase at a critical global bound of confidence. In this paper, heterogeneous bounds of confidence are studied. The…
We study the evolution of opinions on a directed network with community structure. Individuals update their opinions synchronously based on a weighted average of their neighbors' opinions, their own previous opinions, and external media…
Social media algorithms are thought to amplify variation in user beliefs, thus contributing to radicalization. However, quantitative evidence on how algorithms and user preferences jointly shape harmful online engagement is limited. I…
We explore a method to influence or even control the diversity of opinions within a polarised social group. We leverage the voter model in which users hold binary opinions and repeatedly update their beliefs based on others they connect…
In recent years online social networks have become increasingly prominent in political campaigns and, concurrently, several countries have experienced shock election outcomes. This paper proposes a model that links these two phenomena. In…
We study the pairwise bounded confidence model on scale-free networks where new agents regularly arrive over time. The probability that arriving agents form links to preexisting ones depends on both agent degree and opinion proximity. In…
Perceptions of political bias in the media are formed directly, through the independent consumption of the published outputs of a media organization, and indirectly, through observing the collective responses of political allies and…
In online platforms, recommender systems are responsible for directing users to relevant contents. In order to enhance the users' engagement, recommender systems adapt their output to the reactions of the users, who are in turn affected by…
Recent studies, targeting Facebook, showed the tendency of users to interact with information adhering to their preferred narrative and to ignore dissenting information. Primarily driven by confirmation bias, users tend to join polarized…
We study pattern formation in the bounded confidence model of opinion dynamics. In this random process, opinion is quantified by a single variable. Two agents may interact and reach a fair compromise, but only if their difference of opinion…
A long line of work in social psychology has studied variations in people's susceptibility to persuasion -- the extent to which they are willing to modify their opinions on a topic. This body of literature suggests an interesting…
We performed a massive study of the dynamics of group deliberation among several websites containing millions of opinions on topics ranging from books to media. Contrary to the common phenomenon of group polarization observed offline, we…