IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v112y2017i1d10.1007_s11192-017-2390-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sleeping beauties in meme diffusion

Author

Listed:
  • Leihan Zhang

    (Beihang University)

  • Ke Xu

    (Beihang University)

  • Jichang Zhao

    (Beihang University)

Abstract

A sleeping beauty in diffusion indicates that certain information, whether an idea or innovation, will experience a hibernation period before it undergoes a sudden spike of popularity, and this pattern is found widely in the citation history of scientific publications. However, in this study, we demonstrate that the sleeping beauty is an interesting and unexceptional phenomenon in information diffusion; more inspiring is that there exists two consecutive sleeping beauties in the entire lifetime of a meme’s propagation, which suggests that the information, including scientific topics, search queries or Wikipedia entries, which we call memes, will go unnoticed for a period and suddenly attract some attention, and then it falls asleep again and later wakes up with another unexpected popularity peak. Further exploration of this phenomenon shows that the intervals between two wake-ups follow an exponential distributions, both the rising and falling stage lengths, follow power law distributions, and the second wake-up tends to reach its peak in a shorter period of time. In addition, the total volumes of the two wake-ups have positive correlations. Taking these findings into consideration, an upgraded Bass model is presented to well describe the diffusion dynamics of memes on different media. Our results can help understand the common mechanism behind the propagation of different memes and are instructive towards locating the tipping point in marketing or in finding innovative publications in science.

Suggested Citation

  • Leihan Zhang & Ke Xu & Jichang Zhao, 2017. "Sleeping beauties in meme diffusion," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(1), pages 383-402, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:112:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-017-2390-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-017-2390-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-017-2390-2
    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/s11192-017-2390-2?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. John A. Norton & Frank M. Bass, 1987. "A Diffusion Theory Model of Adoption and Substitution for Successive Generations of High-Technology Products," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(9), pages 1069-1086, September.
    2. Bornmann, Lutz & Leydesdorff, Loet & Wang, Jian, 2014. "How to improve the prediction based on citation impact percentiles for years shortly after the publication date?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 175-180.
    3. Lachance, Christian & Larivière, Vincent, 2014. "On the citation lifecycle of papers with delayed recognition," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 863-872.
    4. Norio Ohba & Kumiko Nakao, 2012. "Sleeping beauties in ophthalmology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 93(2), pages 253-264, November.
    5. Ceyda Sanlı & Renaud Lambiotte, 2015. "Local Variation of Hashtag Spike Trains and Popularity in Twitter," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-18, July.
    6. Tibor Braun & Wolfgang Glänzel & András Schubert, 2010. "On Sleeping Beauties, Princes and other tales of citation distributions …," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 195-202, September.
    7. Jiang Li & Fred Y. Ye, 2012. "The phenomenon of all-elements-sleeping-beauties in scientific literature," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(3), pages 795-799, September.
    8. Anthony F. J. van Raan, 2004. "Sleeping Beauties in science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 59(3), pages 467-472, March.
    9. Carlos Sáenz-Royo & Carlos Gracia-Lázaro & Yamir Moreno, 2015. "The Role of the Organization Structure in the Diffusion of Innovations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(5), pages 1-13, May.
    10. Robert P. Light & David E. Polley & Katy Börner, 2014. "Open data and open code for big science of science studies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1535-1551, November.
    11. Kazutoshi Sasahara & Yoshito Hirata & Masashi Toyoda & Masaru Kitsuregawa & Kazuyuki Aihara, 2013. "Quantifying Collective Attention from Tweet Stream," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-10, April.
    12. Frank M. Bass, 1969. "A New Product Growth for Model Consumer Durables," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(5), pages 215-227, January.
    13. Li, Jiang & Shi, Dongbo & Zhao, Star X. & Ye, Fred Y., 2014. "A study of the “heartbeat spectra” for “sleeping beauties”," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 493-502.
    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. Yang, Jinqing & Bu, Yi & Lu, Wei & Huang, Yong & Hu, Jiming & Huang, Shengzhi & Zhang, Li, 2022. "Identifying keyword sleeping beauties: A perspective on the knowledge diffusion process," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    2. Cui, Hao & Kertész, János, 2023. "“Born in Rome” or “Sleeping Beauty”: Emergence of hashtag popularity on the Chinese microblog Sina Weibo," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 619(C).
    3. Houcemeddine Turki & Mohamed Ali Hadj Taieb & Mohamed Ben Aouicha & Ajith Abraham, 2020. "Nature or Science: what Google Trends says," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1367-1385, August.
    4. Hou, Jianhua & Yang, Xiucai, 2020. "Social media-based sleeping beauties: Defining, identifying and features," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
    5. Jianhua Hou & Xiucai Yang, 2019. "Patent sleeping beauties: evolutionary trajectories and identification methods," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 187-215, July.

    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. Aurora A. C. Teixeira & Pedro Cosme Vieira & Ana Patrícia Abreu, 2017. "Sleeping Beauties and their princes in innovation studies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 541-580, February.
    2. Hui Fang, 2018. "Analysing the variation tendencies of the numbers of yearly citations for sleeping beauties in science by using derivative analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(2), pages 1051-1070, May.
    3. Jianhua Hou & Xiucai Yang, 2019. "Patent sleeping beauties: evolutionary trajectories and identification methods," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 187-215, July.
    4. Helena H. Zhang & Fred Y. Ye, 2020. "Identifying ‘associated-sleeping-beauties’ in ‘swan-groups’ based on small qualified datasets of physics and economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1525-1537, March.
    5. Hou, Jianhua & Yang, Xiucai, 2020. "Social media-based sleeping beauties: Defining, identifying and features," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
    6. ZhangJian Zong & XuanZhen Liu & Hui Fang, 2018. "Sleeping beauties with no prince based on the co-citation criterion," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(3), pages 1841-1852, December.
    7. Li, Jiang & Shi, Dongbo & Zhao, Star X. & Ye, Fred Y., 2014. "A study of the “heartbeat spectra” for “sleeping beauties”," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 493-502.
    8. Onodera, Natsuo, 2016. "Properties of an index of citation durability of an article," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 981-1004.
    9. Miura, Takahiro & Asatani, Kimitaka & Sakata, Ichiro, 2023. "Revisiting the uniformity and inconsistency of slow-cited papers in science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    10. Ratnadeep Dey & Anurag Roy & Tanmoy Chakraborty & Saptarshi Ghosh, 2017. "Sleeping beauties in Computer Science: characterization and early identification," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(3), pages 1645-1663, December.
    11. Yuh-Shan Ho & James Hartley, 2017. "Sleeping beauties in psychology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(1), pages 301-305, January.
    12. Lachance, Christian & Larivière, Vincent, 2014. "On the citation lifecycle of papers with delayed recognition," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 863-872.
    13. Jiang Li, 2014. "Citation curves of “all-elements-sleeping-beauties”: “flash in the pan” first and then “delayed recognition”," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 100(2), pages 595-601, August.
    14. Zeng, Carl J. & Qi, Eric P. & Li, Simon S. & Stanley, H. Eugene & Ye, Fred Y., 2017. "Statistical characteristics of breakthrough discoveries in science using the metaphor of black and white swans," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 487(C), pages 40-46.
    15. Min, Chao & Sun, Jianjun & Pei, Lei & Ding, Ying, 2016. "Measuring delayed recognition for papers: Uneven weighted summation and total citations," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 1153-1165.
    16. Jianhua Hou & Xiucai Yang & Haoyang Song & Haiyue Yao, 2023. "Will patent family be dormant? Research on the identification and characteristics of sleeping beauty’s patent family," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(10), pages 5361-5387, October.
    17. Jiang Li & Fred Y. Ye, 2016. "Distinguishing sleeping beauties in science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 108(2), pages 821-828, August.
    18. Helena H. Zhang & Alesia A. Zuccala & Fred Y. Ye, 2019. "Tracing the ‘swan groups’ of physics and economics in the key publications of nobel laureates," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(1), pages 425-436, April.
    19. Philippe Gorry & Pascal Ragouet, 2016. "“Sleeping beauty” and her restless sleep: Charles Dotter and the birth of interventional radiology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 773-784, May.
    20. You Song & Fangling Situ & Hongjun Zhu & Jinzhi Lei, 2018. "To be the Prince to wake up Sleeping Beauty: the rediscovery of the delayed recognition studies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(1), pages 9-24, October.

    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:scient:v:112:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-017-2390-2. 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.