Echo chamber effects based on a novel three-dimensional Deffuant-Weisbuch model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel three-dimensional Deffuant-Weisbuch model incorporating psychological and emotional factors to analyze and mitigate echo chamber effects in online opinion dynamics.

Contribution

It extends the original pairwise interaction model to a three-point interaction model with emotional and natural evolution factors, providing new insights into echo chamber formation and mitigation.

Findings

Network structure changes do not eliminate echo chambers.

Increased network stability and connectivity slow down echo chamber effects.

Opinion leaders and active agents can guide opinions towards neutrality.

Abstract

In order to solve the problem of opinion polarization and distortion caused by echo chamber effect in the evolution process of online public opinion,a three-dimensional Deffuant-Weisbuch model is proposed to study the formation and elimination of echo chamber effect in this paper. Firstly, the original pairwise interaction model is generalized to three-point interaction model. Secondly, we consider individual psychological mechanism and introduce individual emotional factor into the trust threshold of original model. Finally, the natural evolution coefficient of opinion is introduced to modify the model. The improved model is used to conduct simulation experiments on social networks with different structures, and opinion leaders and active agents are introduced into the network, so as to study the corresponding generation and breaking mechanism of echo chamber. The experimental results show that the change of network structure cannot eliminate the echo chamber effect, and the increase of network stability and connectivity can only slow down the echo chamber effect. Opinion leaders can aggregate opinions within their scope of influence and have a guiding effect on opinions. Therefore, if opinion leaders can change their opinions over time, they can well guide opinions to converge to neutral opinions, thus achieving the purpose of breaking the echo chamber. Active agents can lead the opinions in the network to converge to the neutral, and active agents with high stubbornness can lead the free views to converge to the neutral, thus achieving the purpose of breaking the echo chamber effect.