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Topological evolution of the internet public opinion

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  • Lian, Ying
  • Dong, Xuefan
  • Liu, Yijun

Abstract

The Internet forms a platform featured with high liquidity, accessibility and concealment for the public to express their respective views on certain events, thus leading to a large network graph. Due to such environmental features, the public opinions formed on the Internet are different from those on traditional media. Studies focusing on the former area are relatively fewer. In addition, the majority of existing methods proposed for constructing the Internet public opinion topological structure are based on the classic BA model, thus resulting in drawbacks in the range of simplicity and a lack of strict deduction. Therefore, based on the complex networks theory, a model applied to describe the topology of the Internet public opinion is deduced with rigorous derivation in the present paper. Results show that the proposed expression could well reflect the degree distribution of Internet public opinion which follows an analogous power law distribution, and that the peak value and the degree distribution are not correlative to each other. Moreover, it has been also proved that compared to the classic BA model, the proposed model has better accuracy performance in the description of the degree distribution of the Internet public opinion, which contributes to future studies focusing on this area. Thus, an attempt has been made to give the first theoretical description of the Internet public opinion topology in the present paper. In addition, it is also the first paper focusing on the solution of networks degree distribution with an exponential growth form.

Suggested Citation

  • Lian, Ying & Dong, Xuefan & Liu, Yijun, 2017. "Topological evolution of the internet public opinion," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 486(C), pages 567-578.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:486:y:2017:i:c:p:567-578
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2017.05.034
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Ying Lian & Xiaofeng Lin & Xuefan Dong & Shengjie Hou, 2022. "A Normalized Rich-Club Connectivity-Based Strategy for Keyword Selection in Social Media Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-19, June.
    2. Lian, Ying & Liu, Yijun & Dong, Xuefan, 2020. "Strategies for controlling false online information during natural disasters: The case of Typhoon Mangkhut in China," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    3. Hakim Akeb & Aldo Lévy & Mohamed Rdali, 2022. "A quantitative method for opinion ratings and analysis: an event study," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 313(2), pages 625-638, June.
    4. Yanlan Mei & Yan Tu & Kefan Xie & Yicheng Ye & Wenjing Shen, 2019. "Internet Public Opinion Risk Grading under Emergency Event Based on AHPSort II-DEMATEL," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-16, August.
    5. Dong, Xuefan & Lian, Ying, 2021. "A review of social media-based public opinion analyses: Challenges and recommendations," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).

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