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The role of social networks in information diffusion

Authors:

Cameron Marlow,

Lada AdamicAuthors Info & Claims

WWW '12: Proceedings of the 21st international conference on World Wide Web

Pages 519 - 528

https://doi.org/10.1145/2187836.2187907

Published: 16 April 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Online social networking technologies enable individuals to simultaneously share information with any number of peers. Quantifying the causal effect of these mediums on the dissemination of information requires not only identification of who influences whom, but also of whether individuals would still propagate information in the absence of social signals about that information. We examine the role of social networks in online information diffusion with a large-scale field experiment that randomizes exposure to signals about friends' information sharing among 253 million subjects in situ. Those who are exposed are significantly more likely to spread information, and do so sooner than those who are not exposed. We further examine the relative role of strong and weak ties in information propagation. We show that, although stronger ties are individually more influential, it is the more abundant weak ties who are responsible for the propagation of novel information. This suggests that weak ties may play a more dominant role in the dissemination of information online than currently believed.

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Cited By

Baig KAltaf AAzam M(2024)Impact of AI on Communication Relationship and Social Dynamics: A qualitative ApproachBulletin of Business and Economics (BBE)10.61506/01.0028313:2(282-289)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
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Marcondes FBarbosa MGala AAlmeida JNovais P(2024)Emotional and Mental Nuances and Technological Approaches: Optimising Fact-Check Dissemination through Cognitive Reinforcement TechniqueElectronics10.3390/electronics1301024013:1(240)Online publication date: 4-Jan-2024
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Index Terms

The role of social networks in information diffusion
1. Applied computing
  1. Law, social and behavioral sciences
    1. Sociology

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Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

WWW '12: Proceedings of the 21st international conference on World Wide Web

April 2012

1078 pages

ISBN:9781450312295

DOI:10.1145/2187836

General Chairs:
Alain Mille
Université de Lyon, France
,
Fabien Gandon
INRIA, France
,
Jacques Misselis
HP, France
,
Program Chairs:
Michael Rabinovich
Case Western Reserve University, USA
,
Steffen Staab
University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Univ. de Lyon: Universite de Lyon

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SIGWEB: ACM Special Interest Group on Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Web

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 16 April 2012

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WWW 2012

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Univ. de Lyon

WWW 2012: 21st World Wide Web Conference 2012

April 16 - 20, 2012

Lyon, France

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Cited By

Baig KAltaf AAzam M(2024)Impact of AI on Communication Relationship and Social Dynamics: A qualitative ApproachBulletin of Business and Economics (BBE)10.61506/01.0028313:2(282-289)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.61506/01.00283
Madanchian M(2024)The Role of Complex Systems in Predictive Analytics for E-Commerce Innovations in Business ManagementSystems10.3390/systems1210041512:10(415)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/systems12100415
Marcondes FBarbosa MGala AAlmeida JNovais P(2024)Emotional and Mental Nuances and Technological Approaches: Optimising Fact-Check Dissemination through Cognitive Reinforcement TechniqueElectronics10.3390/electronics1301024013:1(240)Online publication date: 4-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13010240
Kuikka V(2024)Detecting Overlapping Communities Based on Influence-Spreading Matrix and Local Maxima of a Quality FunctionComputation10.3390/computation1204008512:4(85)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2024
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Yin JWu TChen CLin FWang X(2024)Diffusion of vaccine misinformation in a Taiwanese online community: The role of influencers and echo chambers (Preprint)JMIR Infodemiology10.2196/57951Online publication date: 1-Mar-2024
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Enikolopov RPetrova MRusso GYanagizawa-Drott D(2024)Socializing Alone: How Online Homophily Has Undermined Social Cohesion in the USSSRN Electronic Journal10.2139/ssrn.4738801Online publication date: 2024
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