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MODELS OF OPINION FORMATION: INFLUENCE OF OPINION LEADERS

NINO BOCCARA

Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA

DRECAM/SPEC, CE Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

https://doi.org/10.1142/S0129183108011954Cited by:22 (Source: Crossref)

Abstract

This paper studies the evolution of the distribution of opinions in a population of individuals in which there exist two distinct subgroups of highly-committed, well-connected opinion leaders endowed with a strong convincing power. Each individual, located at a vertex of a directed graph, is characterized by her name, the list of people she is interacting with, her level of awareness, and her opinion. Various temporal evolutions according to different local rules are compared in order to find under which conditions the formation of strongly polarized subgroups, each adopting the opinion of one of the two groups of opinion leaders, is favored.

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