Socio-semantic dynamics in a blog network

TL;DR

This paper investigates how social interactions and semantic content co-evolve in the US political blogosphere, revealing how knowledge distribution influences network structure and information flow over four months.

Contribution

It introduces an empirical analysis of the intertwined social and semantic dynamics in a real-world blog network, highlighting their co-evolution.

Findings

Knowledge distribution influences new social interactions.

Network topology affects information circulation.

Semantic and social activities are closely linked.

Abstract

The blogosphere can be construed as a knowledge network made of bloggers who are interacting through a social network to share, exchange or produce information. We claim that the social and semantic dimensions are essentially co-determined and propose to investigate the co-evolutionary dynamics of the blogosphere by examining two intertwined issues: First, how does knowledge distribution drive new interactions and thus influence the social network topology? Second, which role structural network properties play in the information circulation in the system? We adopt an empirical standpoint by analyzing the semantic and social activity of a portion of the US political blogosphere, monitored on a period of four months.