Coherence and polarization in complex networks

Babak Ravandi () and Fatma Mili ()
Additional contact information
Babak Ravandi: Purdue University
Fatma Mili: University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Journal of Computational Social Science, 2019, vol. 2, issue 2, No 3, 133-150

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Complex networks; Social networks; Polarization; Homophily; Spread of belief; Agent-based modeling; Simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s42001-019-00036-w

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