Related papers: Do Stubborn Users Always Cause More Polarization a…
We study opinion dynamics in a population of interacting adaptive agents voting on a set of complex multidimensional issues. We consider agents which can classify issues into for or against. The agents arrive at the opinions about each…
Online social networks are ubiquitous parts of modern societies and the discussions that take place in these networks impact people's opinions on diverse topics, such as politics or vaccination. One of the most popular models to formally…
Opinion polarization is on the rise, causing concerns for the openness of public debates. Additionally, extreme opinions on different topics often show significant correlations. The dynamics leading to these polarized ideological opinions…
The rise of social media and online social networks has been a disruptive force in society. Opinions are increasingly shaped by interactions on online social media, and social phenomena including disagreement and polarization are now…
The flow of information reaching us via the online media platforms is optimized not by the information content or relevance but by popularity and proximity to the target. This is typically performed in order to maximise platform usage. As a…
Members of different political groups not only disagree about issues but also dislike and distrust each other. While social media can amplify this emotional divide -- called affective polarization by political scientists -- there is a lack…
In this study, I present a theoretical social learning model to investigate how confirmation bias affects opinions when agents exchange information over a social network. Hence, besides exchanging opinions with friends, agents observe a…
To obtain a foundational understanding of timeline algorithms and viral content in shaping public opinions, computer scientists started to study augmented versions of opinion formation models from sociology. In this paper, we generalize the…
Recommendation algorithms, used in online social networks, shape interactions between users. In particular, link-recommendation algorithms suggest new connections and affect how individuals interact and exchange information. These…
The dynamical origin of opinion polarization in the real world is an interesting topic physical scientists may help to understand. To properly model the dynamics, the theory must be fully compatible with findings by social psychologists on…
Users online tend to join polarized groups of like-minded peers around shared narratives, forming echo chambers. The echo chamber effect and opinion polarization may be driven by several factors including human biases in information…
The emergence of opinion polarization within human communities -- the phenomenon that individuals within a society tend to develop conflicting attitudes related to the greatest diversity of topics -- has been a focus of interest for…
In order to truly understand how social media might shape online discourses or contribute to societal polarization, we need refined models of platform choice, that is: models that help us understand why users prefer one social media…
Previous explanations for the persistence of polarization of opinions have typically included modelling assumptions that predispose the possibility of polarization (i.e., assumptions allowing a pair of agents to drift apart in their opinion…
People often stick to their existing beliefs, ignoring contradicting evidence or only interacting with those who reinforce their views. Social media platforms often facilitate such tendencies of homophily and echo-chambers as they promote…
We investigate the impact of noise and topology on opinion diversity in social networks. We do so by extending well-established models of opinion dynamics to a stochastic setting where agents are subject both to assimilative forces by their…
Polarization, defined as the emergence of sharply divided groups with opposing and often extreme views, is an increasingly prominent feature of modern societies. While many studies analyze this phenomenon in the context of single issues,…
Understanding the emergence of inequality in complex systems requires attention to both structural dynamics and intrinsic heterogeneity. In the context of opinion dynamics, traditional models relied on static snapshots or assumed…
We investigate disagreement and polarization in a social network with two polarizing sources of information. First, we define disagreement and polarization indices in two-party leader-follower models of opinion dynamics. We then give…
The influence of the social relationships of an individual on the individual's opinions (about a topic, a product, or whatever else) is a well known phenomenon and it has been widely studied. This paper considers a network of positive (i.e.…