Against mass media trends: minority growth in cultural globalization

TL;DR

This paper explores how minority cultural groups can grow significantly in a globally connected society influenced by mass media, especially when certain network conditions are met, revealing complex phase behaviors.

Contribution

It demonstrates that a large minority can dominate culturally under specific network structures and media influence, extending Axelrod's cultural dissemination model.

Findings

Largest minority can reach nearly half the population

Critical long-range connections enable minority growth

Identifies four distinct phases in cultural dynamics

Abstract

We investigate the collective behavior of a globalized society under the influence of endogenous mass media trends. The mass media trend is a global field corresponding to the statistical mode of the states of the agents in the system. The interaction dynamics is based on Axelrod's rules for the dissemination of culture. We find situations where the largest minority group, possessing a cultural state different from that of the predominant trend transmitted by the mass media, can grow to almost half of the size of the population. We show that this phenomenon occurs when a critical number of long-range connections are present in the underlying network of interactions. We have numerically characterized four phases on the space of parameters of the system: an ordered phase; a semi-ordered phase where almost half of the population consists of the largest minority in a state different from that of the mass media; a disordered phase; and a chimera-like phase where one large domain coexists with many very small domains.