Information flow in social groups

doi:10.1016/j.physa.2004.01.030

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

Volume 337, Issues 1–2, 1 June 2004, Pages 327-335

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2004.01.030 Get rights and content

Abstract

We present a study of information flow that takes into account the observation that an item relevant to one person is more likely to be of interest to individuals in the same social circle than those outside of it. This is due to the fact that the similarity of node attributes in social networks decreases as a function of the graph distance. An epidemic model on a scale-free network with this property has a finite threshold, implying that the spread of information is limited. We tested our predictions by measuring the spread of messages in an organization and also by numerical experiments that take into consideration the organizational distance among individuals.

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Information flow in social groups

Abstract

Social Networks

Phys. Rev. E

Science

Phys. Rev. E

Phys. Rev. Lett.