Mass media competition and alternative ordering in social dynamics

TL;DR

This paper explores how social agents respond to competing mass media influences, revealing conditions where weaker media can dominate or the system orders independently of media, depending on network topology.

Contribution

It introduces a model analyzing the effects of competing mass media on social dynamics, highlighting the role of network topology and long-range interactions in collective behavior.

Findings

Weaker mass media can persuade the majority under certain conditions.

Long-range interactions are crucial for alternative ordering phenomena.

The model extends to multiple media, showing persistent nontrivial behaviors.

Abstract

We investigate the collective behavior of a system of social agents subject to the competition between two mass media influences considered as external fields. We study under what conditions either of two mass media with different intensities can impose its message to the majority. In addition to a collective state dominated by the stronger mass media and a disordered phase, we characterize two nontrivial effects as the parameters of the system are varied: (i) the appearance of a majority sharing the state of the weaker mass media, and (ii) the emergence of an alternative ordering in a state different from those of either media. We explore the dependence of both phenomena on the topology of the network of interactions. We show that the presence of long-range interactions rather than random connections is essential for the occurrence of both effects. The model can be extended to include multiple mass media and we illustrate it by considering three mass media fields acting on the system. Nontrivial collective behaviors persist for some ranges of parameters: the weakest mass media can convince the majority, and the system can spontaneously order against all applied fields.