Network Opinion Evolution Model Incorporating the Influence of Media Heterogeneity

Abstract

Opinion dynamics is the basic research content of social network research. Traditional opinion dynamics models focus on the heterogeneity of regular users, but ignore the heterogeneity of media users in social networks. Compared to regular users, media users have the characteristics of releasing more information and having greater influence, and their opinions are not easily affected by regular users. Aiming at the characteristics of information transmission with the participation of media users, we propose an opinion dynamics model to reproduce a realistic process of opinion interaction between regular users and media users and between regular users, respectively. The time variable is also incorporated into the probability of opinion adoption to make sure the opinion interaction model has timeliness. The simulation experiments on models of four typical complex network structures have shown that the characteristic of large average path length in a regular network will lead to the media opinion spreading slowly with a small scope, and a low individual opinion interaction frequency. On the other hand, the characteristics of strong heterogeneity and many center users in a scale-free network lead to media opinion spreading fast with a big scope. Moreover, the opinion adoption probability has a great influence on the average opinion value of the final state in four networks, while the bounded trust threshold has a great influence on opinion evolution in regular networks and scale-free networks. Furthermore, the media location selection approach based on the node betweenness results in opinion influence transmission with high speed and large range compared with the approaches based on node degree and clustering coefficient.