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We introduce a socially motivated extension of the voter model in which individual voters are also influenced by two opposing, fixed-opinion news sources. These sources forestall consensus and instead drive the population to a politically…
In this paper we propose a novel control approach for opinion dynamics on evolving networks. The controls modify the strength of connections in the network, rather than influencing opinions directly, with the overall goal of steering the…
We describe a model for polarization in multi-agent systems based on Esteban and Ray's standard measure of polarization from economics. Agents evolve by updating their beliefs (opinions) based on an underlying influence graph, as in the…
Socio-diversity, the variety of human opinions, ideas, behaviors and styles, has profound implications for social systems. While it fuels innovation, productivity, and collective intelligence, it can also complicate communication and erode…
Social media has played an important role in shaping political discourse over the last decade. At the same time, it is often perceived to have increased political polarization, thanks to the scale of discussions and their public nature. In…
Recent studies suggest that social media usage -- while linked to an increased diversity of information and perspectives for users -- has exacerbated user polarization on many issues. A popular theory for this phenomenon centers on the…
We propose a model of binary opinion in which the opinion of the individuals change according to the state of their neighbouring domains. If the neighbouring domains have opposite opinions, then the opinion of the domain with the larger…
In online social networks, users tend to select information that adhere to their system of beliefs and to form polarized groups of like minded people. Polarization as well as its effects on online social interactions have been extensively…
In this paper, we present an empirical study of the opinion dynamics of a large-scale sample of online social network users. We estimate opinions of users as continuous scalars based on their subscriptions to information sources and analyze…
Opinion dynamics models how the publicly expressed opinions of users in a social network coevolve according to their neighbors as well as their own intrinsic opinion. Motivated by the real-world manipulation of social networks during the…
Financial markets provide an ideal frame for studying decision making in crowded environments. Both the amount and accuracy of the data allows to apply tools and concepts coming from physics that studies collective and emergent phenomena or…
The concept of homophily is pervasive in online social media. While many empirical studies have relied on external sociodemographic traits to investigate it, significantly less is known about homophily at the cognitive level, that is, at…
The existence of polarization and echo chambers has been noted in social media discussions of public concern such as the Covid-19 pandemic, foreign election interference, and regional conflicts. However, measuring polarization and assessing…
The proliferation of social media platforms, recommender systems, and their joint societal impacts have prompted significant interest in opinion formation and evolution within social networks. We study how local edge dynamics can drive…
Political polarization appears to be on the rise, as measured by voting behavior, general affect towards opposing partisans and their parties, and contents posted and consumed online. Research over the years has focused on the role of the…
The growing prominence of social media in public discourse has led to a greater scrutiny of the quality of online information and the role it plays in amplifying political polarization. However, studies of polarization on social media…
There is an increasing need for the ability to model fine-grained opinion shifts of social media users, as concerns about the potential polarizing social effects increase. However, the lack of publicly available datasets that are suitable…
Signed networks contain edge annotations to indicate whether each interaction is friendly (positive edge) or antagonistic (negative edge). The model is simple but powerful and it can capture novel and interesting structural properties of…
Social media platforms significantly influence ideological divisions by enabling users to select information that aligns with their beliefs and avoid opposing viewpoints. Analyzing approximately 47 million Facebook posts, this study…
In many instances of election, the electorate appears to be a composite of partisan and independent voters. Given that partisans are not likely to convert to a different party, a main goal for a party could be to mobilize independent voters…