IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jcsosc/v2y2019i2d10.1007_s42001-019-00036-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Coherence and polarization in complex networks

Author

Listed:
  • Babak Ravandi

    (Purdue University)

  • Fatma Mili

    (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)

Abstract

In a community, individuals hold opinions and views that are shaped in part by their sources of information and their social network. These opinions and views are rarely uniformly distributed through the possible spectrum. They can exhibit different patterns. We are, in particular, interested in two opposite patterns: polarization, where views are concentrated around extreme positions, and coherence, where views are closer to the center, more moderate positions. We seek to create a model of views evolution and their convergence towards one or another of the patterns. Furthermore, we focus on applying interventions to the structure of networks to demote the polarization issue and influence a network toward convergence of cohered views. Our results show adding links between the weakly-connected nodes reduces polarization, implying the weakly-connected nodes can form bridges between extreme views.

Suggested Citation

  • Babak Ravandi & Fatma Mili, 2019. "Coherence and polarization in complex networks," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 2(2), pages 133-150, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:jcsosc:v:2:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s42001-019-00036-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s42001-019-00036-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s42001-019-00036-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s42001-019-00036-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. José De Gregorio & Jong–Wha Lee, 2002. "Education and Income Inequality: New Evidence From Cross‐Country Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(3), pages 395-416, September.
    2. repec:cup:cbooks:9780511771576 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Flaviano Morone & Hernán A. Makse, 2015. "Influence maximization in complex networks through optimal percolation," Nature, Nature, vol. 524(7563), pages 65-68, August.
    4. Easley,David & Kleinberg,Jon, 2010. "Networks, Crowds, and Markets," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521195331.
    5. Yang-Yu Liu & Jean-Jacques Slotine & Albert-László Barabási, 2011. "Controllability of complex networks," Nature, Nature, vol. 473(7346), pages 167-173, May.
    6. Shane T. Mueller & Yin-Yin Sarah Tan, 2018. "Cognitive perspectives on opinion dynamics: the role of knowledge in consensus formation, opinion divergence, and group polarization," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 15-48, January.
    7. Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia, 2018. "Fighting fake news: a role for computational social science in the fight against digital misinformation," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 147-153, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tobias Blanke & Tommaso Venturini, 2022. "A network view on reliability: using machine learning to understand how we assess news websites," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 69-88, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xiaodong Liu & Xiangke Liao & Shanshan Li & Si Zheng & Bin Lin & Jingying Zhang & Lisong Shao & Chenlin Huang & Liquan Xiao, 2017. "On the Shoulders of Giants: Incremental Influence Maximization in Evolving Social Networks," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2017, pages 1-14, September.
    2. Ma, Lijia & Zhang, Xiao & Mao, Fubing & Cai, Shubin & Lin, Qiuzhen & Chen, Jianyong & Wang, Shanfeng, 2020. "Mitigation of malicious attacks on structural balance of signed networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 548(C).
    3. Li, Sheng & Liu, Wenwen & Wu, Ruizi & Li, Junli, 2023. "An adaptive attack model to network controllability," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    4. Peng, Peng & Poon, Jessie P.H. & Yang, Yu & Lu, Feng & Cheng, Shifen, 2019. "Global oil traffic network and diffusion of influence among ports using real time data," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 333-342.
    5. Markus Brede, 2019. "How Does Active Participation Affect Consensus: Adaptive Network Model of Opinion Dynamics and Influence Maximizing Rewiring," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2019, pages 1-16, June.
    6. Alexandru Topîrceanu, 2022. "Benchmarking Cost-Effective Opinion Injection Strategies in Complex Networks," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-16, June.
    7. Blazquez-Soriano, Amparo & Ramos-Sandoval, Rosmery, 2022. "Information transfer as a tool to improve the resilience of farmers against the effects of climate change: The case of the Peruvian National Agrarian Innovation System," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    8. Ghosh, sudeshna, 2017. "Education Attainment Forecasting and Economic Inequality United States," MPRA Paper 89712, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Martin L. Weitzman, 2015. "A Voting Architecture for the Governance of Free-Driver Externalities, with Application to Geoengineering," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 117(4), pages 1049-1068, October.
    10. Christopher Hartwell, 2022. "Institutions and trade‐related inequality," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 3246-3264, July.
    11. Wei, Bo & Liu, Jie & Wei, Daijun & Gao, Cai & Deng, Yong, 2015. "Weighted k-shell decomposition for complex networks based on potential edge weights," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 420(C), pages 277-283.
    12. Wei Zhong, 2017. "Simulating influenza pandemic dynamics with public risk communication and individual responsive behavior," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 475-495, December.
    13. Cong Minh Huynh & Nam Hoai Tran, 2023. "Financial development, income inequality, and institutional quality: A multi-dimensional analysis," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 2242128-224, June.
    14. Guo Weilong & Minca Andreea & Wang Li, 2016. "The topology of overlapping portfolio networks," Statistics & Risk Modeling, De Gruyter, vol. 33(3-4), pages 139-155, December.
    15. Pablo García S. & Camilo Pérez N., 2017. "Desigualdad, inflación, ciclos y crisis en Chile," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 44(2 Year 20), pages 185-221, December.
    16. Matsuo, Miki & Tomoda, Yasunobu, 2012. "Human capital Kuznets curve with subsistence consumption level," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 392-395.
    17. Caruso Raul & Antonella Biscione, 2022. "Militarization and Income Inequality in European Countries (2000–2017)," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 28(3), pages 267-285, September.
    18. Jochimsen Beate & Raffer Christian, 2018. "Herausforderungen bei der Messung von Wohlfahrt," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 67(1), pages 63-100, May.
    19. Thomas J. Sargent & John Stachurski, 2022. "Economic Networks: Theory and Computation," Papers 2203.11972, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2022.
    20. Alali, Walid Y., 2011. "Inequality in Education and Income Across Countries," EconStor Preprints 269880, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jcsosc:v:2:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s42001-019-00036-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.