Damage spreading and opinion dynamics on scale-free networks

2004/05/05 by Santo Fortunato · 79 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Computer science #Machine learning #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Perturbation (astronomy) #Physics #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Statistical physics #Value (mathematics) #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.stat-mech

paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.physa.2004.09.007

published in Physica A Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 348, 683-690 (Elsevier BV) · 5 pages, 5 figures

arxiv created 2004/05/05 · openalex publication_date 2004/11/11 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We study damage spreading among the opinions of a system of agents, subjected to the dynamics of the Krause-Hegselmann consensus model. The damage consists in a sharp change of the opinion of one or more agents in the initial random opinion configuration, supposedly due to some external factors and/or events. This may help to understand for instance under which conditions special shocking events or targeted propaganda are able to influence the results of elections. For agents lying on the nodes of a Barabasi-Albert network, there is a damage spreading transition at a low value epsilon_d of the confidence bound parameter. Interestingly, we find as well that there is some critical value epsilon_s above which the initial perturbation manages to propagate to all other agents.

Citations

• How to Convince Others? Monte Carlo Simulations of the Sznajd Model
• Metabolic stability and epigenesis in randomly constructed genetic nets
• OPINION FORMATION ON A DETERMINISTIC PSEUDO-FRACTAL NETWORK
• Emergence of scaling in random networks
• Mixing beliefs among interacting agents
• Statistical mechanics of complex networks
• The Structure and Function of Complex Networks