Evolution Model of Spatial Interaction Network in Online Social Networking Services

Jian Dong,Pengfei Zhang,Fang Zhang,Xiaogang Qiu,Danhuai Guo,Bin Chen,Chuan Ai

doi:10.3390/e21040434

Abstract

The development of online social networking services provides a rich source of data of social networks including geospatial information. More and more research has shown that geographical space is an important factor in the interactions of users in social networks. In this paper, we construct the spatial interaction network from the city level, which is called the city interaction network, and study the evolution mechanism of the city interaction network formed in the process of information dissemination in social networks. A network evolution model for interactions among cities is established. The evolution model consists of two core processes: the edge arrival and the preferential attachment of the edge. The edge arrival model arranges the arrival time of each edge; the model of preferential attachment of the edge determines the source node and the target node of each arriving edge. Six preferential attachment models (Random-Random, Random-Degree, Degree-Random, Geographical distance, Degree-Degree, Degree-Degree-Geographical distance) are built, and the maximum likelihood approach is used to do the comparison. We find that the degree of the node and the geographic distance of the edge are the key factors affecting the evolution of the city interaction network. Finally, the evolution experiments using the optimal model DDG are conducted, and the experiment results are compared with the real city interaction network extracted from the information dissemination data of the WeChat web page. The results indicate that the model can not only capture the attributes of the real city interaction network, but also reflect the actual characteristics of the interactions among cities.

Highlights

With the rapid development of the Internet, smart phones, and information technology, online social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, Sina Weibo, and WeChat have developed rapidly.These platforms facilitate the interactions among users and accelerate the dissemination of emotions and opinions contained in the information
This paper studied the evolution mechanism of the city interaction network formed in the process of information dissemination in social networks, where nodes represent cities and edges represent interactions among cities
Six preferential attachment models were considered, and the comparison was done by the maximum likelihood approach

Summary

Introduction

With the rapid development of the Internet, smart phones, and information technology, online social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, Sina Weibo, and WeChat have developed rapidly. These platforms facilitate the interactions among users and accelerate the dissemination of emotions and opinions contained in the information. These platforms provide a rich source of social media including geospatial information for the research of social networks [1,2,3,4]. More and more research shows that geographical space, which seems to be a bridge between online and offline, affects the interactions of users in social networks [5,6,7].

Results

Discussion

Conclusion