Modeling opinion leader's role in the diffusion of innovation

TL;DR

This paper translates an existing agent-based model of opinion leaders in innovation diffusion to the GAMA platform, demonstrating that leveraging new features enhances model expressiveness and explanatory power in social science simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a translation of a social science ABM to GAMA, highlighting the benefits of using advanced modeling features for better insights.

Findings

GAMA platform improves model expressiveness.

Enhanced simulation results with new platform features.

Supports future social science modeling efforts.

Abstract

The diffusion of innovations is an important topic for the consumer markets. Early research focused on how innovations spread on the level of the whole society. To get closer to the real world scenarios agent based models (ABM) started focusing on individual-level agents. In our work we will translate an existing ABM that investigates the role of opinion leaders in the process of diffusion of innovations to a new, more expressive platform designed for agent based modeling, GAMA. We will do it to show that taking advantage of new features of the chosen platform should be encouraged when making models in the field of social sciences in the future, because it can be beneficial for the explanatory power of simulation results.