The Role of Homophily in the Emergence of Opinion Controversies

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7525035
AutoresFloriana Gargiulo (0000-0001-9813-1815, Groupe d'Étude des Méthodes de l'Analyse Sociologique de la Sorbonne, autor de correspondencia), Yérali Gandica (0000-0002-6262-1801, University of Namur)
Año2017
Volumen20
Número3
Fecha de publicación2017-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1460-7425 • E-ISSN: 1460-7425
EditorialJournal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.18564/jasss.3448
OpenAlexW2586025571
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9
Referencias citadas14

Understanding the emergence of strong controversial issues in modern\nsocieties is a key issue in opinion studies. A commonly diffused idea is the\nfact that the increasing of homophily in social networks, due to the modern\nICT, can be a driving force for opinion polariation. In this paper we address\nthe problem with a modelling approach following three basic steps. We first\nintroduce a network morphogenesis model to reconstruct network structures where\nhomophily can be tuned with a parameter. We show that as homophily increases\nthe emergence of marked topological community structures in the networks\nraises. Secondly, we perform an opinion dynamics process on homophily dependent\nnetworks and we show that, contrary to the common idea, homophily helps\nconsensus formation. Finally, we introduce a tunable external media pressure\nand we show that, actually, the combination of homophily and media makes the\nmedia effect less effective and leads to strongly polarized opinion clusters.\n

Data science · Homophily · Opinion leadership · Process (computing · Social media · Social science · Sociology · World Wide Web · Complex Network Analysis Techniques · Computer Science · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence