Committed activists and the reshaping of status-quo social consensus

TL;DR

This study models how committed activists with higher communication propensities more effectively influence social consensus, requiring fewer individuals to shift public opinion, especially in less divided communities.

Contribution

It introduces a model linking commitment with communication activity, demonstrating activists' increased efficiency in opinion spreading compared to random minorities.

Findings

Activists are more effective in spreading opinions.

Fewer activists are needed to change consensus.

Community divisions hinder opinion shifts.

Abstract

The role of committed minorities in shaping public opinion has been recently addressed with the help of multi-agent models. However, previous studies focused on homogeneous populations where zealots stand out only for their stubbornness. Here, we consider the more general case in which individuals are characterized by different propensities to communicate. In particular, we correlate commitment with a higher tendency to push an opinion, acknowledging the fact that individuals with unwavering dedication to a cause are also more active in their attempts to promote their message. We show that these \textit{activists} are not only more efficient in spreading their message but that their efforts require an order of magnitude fewer individuals than a randomly selected committed minority to bring the population over to a new consensus. Finally, we address the role of communities, showing that partisan divisions in the society can make it harder for committed individuals to flip the status-quo social consensus.