Helyszín: MTA TK, 1014 Bp. Országház u. 30,
PTI tárgyalóterme (1. em.), 15:00 órától
The Facebook model of opinion dynamics and emotional contagion
Abstract
Opinion dynamics in our age takes place at social media sites and is interrelated with emotional contagion (Kramer et al., 2014). Models of opinion dynamics, even if they took into account interpersonal attraction and emotions, have considered pairwise interactions that take place randomly or in a pre-specified network. We present a new opinion dynamics model that fits much closer to actual features of opinion dynamics on social media, considers opinion walls instead of pairwise interactions and takes account of filtering that is a new feature of social media sites, such as facebook. We find an answer to the problem of classical opinion dynamics models about how polarization of opinions can be stable. We demonstrate that polarization of opinions is a result of emotional contagion and filtering on these sites. Our model is also capable of describing the conditions that assist the survival of extreme opinions and views.