Vendeville, Antoine;
Guedj, Benjamin;
Zhou, Shi;
(2022)
Towards control of opinion diversity by
introducing zealots into a polarised social
group.
In: Benito, RM and Cherifi, C and Cherifi, H and Moro, E and Rocha, LM and Sales-Pardo, M, (eds.)
International Conference on Complex Networks and Their Applications COMPLEX NETWORKS 2021: Complex Networks & Their Applications X.
(pp. pp. 341-352).
Springer, Cham
Preview |
Text
2006.07265v7.pdf - Other Download (313kB) | Preview |
Abstract
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 with. Stubborn agents who never change their minds (“zealots”) are also disseminated through the network, which is modelled by a connected graph. Building on earlier results, we provide a closed-form expression for the average opinion of the group at equilibrium. This leads us to a strategy to inject zealots into a polarised network in order to shift the average opinion towards any target value. We account for the possible presence of a backfire effect, which may lead the group to react negatively and reinforce its level of polarisation in response. Our results are supported by numerical experiments on synthetic data.
| Type: | Proceedings paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | Towards control of opinion diversity by introducing zealots into a polarised social group |
| Location: | Polytechn Univ Madrid, Madrid, SPAIN |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/978-3-030-93413-2_29 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93413-2_29 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Voter model, Opinion dynamics, Social networks |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10160674 |
Loading...
Loading...Loading...Loading...Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
