Rumor propagation model with consideration of scientific knowledge level and social reinforcement in heterogeneous network

Abstract

In the Internet age, rumors bring great panic, research on the mechanism of propagation will help mitigate the bad influence of rumors. In this paper, we propose a modified rumor propagation model with consideration of scientific knowledge level and social reinforcement, and derive the mean-field equations that describe the dynamics of rumor propagation process. We obtain the rumor propagation threshold, which is closely related to scientific knowledge level and social reinforcement. The threshold of rumor propagation is increased by the scientific knowledge level, and the critical threshold of scientific knowledge level is also affected by the rumor propagation probability The results show that rumor propagates more quickly and more widely in people without scientific knowledge, while rumor propagates more slowly and the final size of the rumor is smaller in people with scientific knowledge. Positive social reinforcement will reduce the propagation threshold of rumor propagation, increase the propagation rate, and finally increase the rumor scale. Negative social reinforcement has the opposite effect on rumor. These results are verified by numerical simulations on scale-free networks. Research results also provide a good reference for future studies on how to control rumor propagation.