Exploring the complex pattern of information spreading in online blog communities

TL;DR

This study analyzes how information spreads in online blog communities, revealing three distinct mechanisms and highlighting the importance of social spreading for effective diffusion, which challenges traditional epidemic models.

Contribution

It identifies three specific spreading mechanisms in online blogs and demonstrates that users tend to stick to one, providing new insights for modeling information diffusion.

Findings

Three spreading mechanisms: social spreading, self-promotion, broadcast

Most users follow a single diffusion mechanism

Social spreading significantly influences diffusion tree structure

Abstract

Information spreading in online social communities has attracted tremendous attention due to its utmost practical values in applications. Despite that several individual-level diffusion data have been investigated, we still lack the detailed understanding of the spreading pattern of information. Here, by comparing information flows and social links in a blog community, we find that the diffusion processes are induced by three different spreading mechanisms: social spreading, self-promotion and broadcast. Although numerous previous studies have employed epidemic spreading models to simulate information diffusion, we observe that such models fail to reproduce the realistic diffusion pattern. In respect to users behaviors, strikingly, we find that most users would stick to one specific diffusion mechanism. Moreover, our observations indicate that the social spreading is not only crucial for the structure of diffusion trees, but also capable of inducing more subsequent individuals to acquire the information. Our findings suggest new directions for modeling of information diffusion in social systems and could inform design of efficient propagation strategies based on users behaviors.