Influencing dynamics on social networks without knowledge of network microstructure

arXiv2011.05774MaRDI QIDQ6353519

Nick S. Jones, Matthew Garrod

Publication date: 11 November 2020

Abstract: Social network based information campaigns can be used for promoting beneficial health behaviours and mitigating polarisation (e.g. regarding climate change or vaccines). Network-based intervention strategies typically rely on full knowledge of network structure. It is largely not possible or desirable to obtain population-level social network data due to availability and privacy issues. It is easier to obtain information about individuals' attributes (e.g. age, income), which are jointly informative of an individual's opinions and their social network position. We investigate strategies for influencing the system state in a statistical mechanics based model of opinion formation. Using synthetic and data based examples we illustrate the advantages of implementing coarse-grained influence strategies on Ising models with modular structure in the presence of external fields. Our work provides a scalable methodology for influencing Ising systems on large graphs and the first exploration of the Ising influence problem in the presence of ambient (social) fields. By exploiting the observation that strong ambient fields can simplify control of networked dynamics, our findings open the possibility of efficiently computing and implementing public information campaigns using insights from social network theory without costly or invasive levels of data collection.

Has companion code repository: https://github.com/MGarrod1/unobserved_spin_influence

This page was built for publication: Influencing dynamics on social networks without knowledge of network microstructure

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q6353519)