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The Role of Homophily in the Emergence of Opinion Controversies

Author

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  • Floriana Gargiulo
  • Yerali Gandica

Abstract

Understanding the emergence of strong controversial issues in modern societies is a key issue in opinion studies. A commonly diffused idea is the fact that the increasing of homophily in social networks, due to the modern ICT, can be a driving force for opinion polariation. In this paper we address the problem with a modelling approach following three basic steps. We first introduce a network morphogenesis model to re-construct network structures where homophily can be tuned with a parameter. We show that as homophily increases the emergence of marked topological community structures in the networks raises. Secondly, we perform an opinion dynamics process on homophily dependent networks and we show that, contrary to the common idea, homophily helps consensus formation. Finally, we introduce a tunable external media pressure and we show that, actually, the combination of homophily and media makes the media effect less effective and leads to strongly polarized opinion clusters.

Suggested Citation

  • Floriana Gargiulo & Yerali Gandica, 2017. "The Role of Homophily in the Emergence of Opinion Controversies," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 20(3), pages 1-8.
    • Handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2016-182-3
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Domino, Krzysztof & Miszczak, Jarosław Adam, 2022. "Will you infect me with your opinion?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 608(P1).
    2. Ambrosius, Floor H.W. & Kramer, Mark R. & Spiegel, Alisa & Bokkers, Eddie A.M. & Bock, Bettina B. & Hofstede, Gert Jan, 2022. "Diffusion of organic farming among Dutch pig farmers: An agent-based model," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    3. Francisco J. León-Medina & Jordi Tena-Sánchez & Francisco J. Miguel, 2020. "Fakers becoming believers: how opinion dynamics are shaped by preference falsification, impression management and coherence heuristics," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 385-412, April.
    4. Agnieszka Kowalska-Styczeń & Krzysztof Malarz, 2020. "Noise induced unanimity and disorder in opinion formation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-22, July.

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