Mass Media Influence Spreading in Social Networks with Community Structure

TL;DR

This paper extends Axelrod's social influence model to include mass media and community structures, analyzing how modular social networks impact message dissemination and identifying conditions for effective influence.

Contribution

It introduces a model combining social influence, mass media, and community structure, revealing how modularity affects message spreading and campaign success.

Findings

Community structure significantly influences message propagation.

Successful spreading depends on inhomogeneous mass media fields.

A novel phase diagram maps influence conditions.

Abstract

We study an extension of Axelrod's model for social influence, in which cultural drift is represented as random perturbations, while mass media are introduced by means of an external field. In this scenario, we investigate how the modular structure of social networks affects the propagation of mass media messages across the society. The community structure of social networks is represented by coupled random networks, in which two random graphs are connected by intercommunity links. Considering inhomogeneous mass media fields, we study the conditions for successful message spreading and find a novel phase diagram in the multidimensional parameter space. These findings show that social modularity effects are of paramount importance in order to design successful, cost-effective advertising campaigns.