IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ihs/ihsesp/218.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Network Formation in the Political Blogosphere. An Application of Agent Based Simulation and e-Research Tools

Author

Listed:
  • Ackland, Robert

    (Australian Demographic and Social Institute, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia)

  • Shorish, Jamsheed

    (Department of Economics and Finance, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria)

Abstract

The political blogosphere has recently been the focus of attention for social network analysis and applications of network and graph theory. In a recent paper, Adamic and Glance (2005) report differences between the linking behavior of politically conservative vs. politically liberal Web bloggers. We construct a simple agent-based network formation model which shows that one such difference, demonstrating what we term ‘political homophily’, can be generated by connecting the blogosphere to the underlying population distribution of political preferences. The model is implemented as a web service in the e-tool VOSON (Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks), and both model and tool serve to define a natural environment for research into link formation behavior with large numbers of heterogeneous network participants.

Suggested Citation

  • Ackland, Robert & Shorish, Jamsheed, 2007. "Network Formation in the Political Blogosphere. An Application of Agent Based Simulation and e-Research Tools," Economics Series 218, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ihs:ihsesp:218
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://irihs.ihs.ac.at/id/eprint/1802
    File Function: First version, 2007
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew O. Jackson & Brian W. Rogers, 2005. "The Economics of Small Worlds," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 617-627, 04/05.
    2. Gabrielle Demange & Wooders Myrna, 2005. "Group Formation in Economics: Networks, Clubs and Coalitions," Post-Print halshs-00576778, HAL.
    3. Alford, John R. & Funk, Carolyn L. & Hibbing, John R., 2005. "Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(2), pages 153-167, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hellmann, Tim & Staudigl, Mathias, 2014. "Evolution of social networks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(3), pages 583-596.
    2. Christophe Bravard & Sudipta Sarangi & PHILIPP MÖHLMEIER & AGNIESZKA RUSINOWSKA & EMILY TANIMURA, 2016. "A Degree-Distance-Based Connections Model with Negative and Positive Externalities," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 18(2), pages 168-192, April.
    3. Matthew O. Jackson & Brian W. Rogers, 2005. "Search in the Formation of Large Networks: How Random are Socially Generated Networks?," Game Theory and Information 0503005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Yasunori Okumura, 2012. "Spatial competition and collaboration networks," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 41(3), pages 455-472, August.
    5. Jean-François Caulier & Michel Grabisch & Agnieszka Rusinowska, 2015. "An allocation rule for dynamic random network formation processes," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 60(2), pages 283-313, October.
    6. Dev, Pritha, 2014. "Identity and fragmentation in networks," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 86-100.
    7. Demange, Gabrielle, 2012. "On party-proportional representation under district distortions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 181-191.
    8. Gaudeul, Alexia & Mathieu, Laurence & Peroni, Chiara, 2008. "Blogs and the Economics of Reciprocal Attention," MPRA Paper 11298, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Ana Mauleon & Huasheng Song & Vincent Vannetelbosch, 2010. "Networks of Free Trade Agreements among Heterogeneous Countries," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(3), pages 471-500, June.
    10. Mikaela Backman & Charlie Karlsson, 2016. "Determinants of self-employment among commuters and non-commuters," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(4), pages 755-774, November.
    11. Joost Vandenbossche & Thomas Demuynck, 2013. "Network Formation with Heterogeneous Agents and Absolute Friction," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 42(1), pages 23-45, June.
    12. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2003. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2028, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    13. Zhepeng Li & Xiao Fang & Xue Bai & Olivia R. Liu Sheng, 2017. "Utility-Based Link Recommendation for Online Social Networks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1938-1952, June.
    14. Sommarat Chantarat & Christopher Barrett, 2012. "Social network capital, economic mobility and poverty traps," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(3), pages 299-342, September.
    15. Niclas Berggren & Henrik Jordahl & Panu Poutvaara, 2010. "The Right Look: Conservative Politicians Look Better and their Voters Reward it," CESifo Working Paper Series 3310, CESifo.
    16. in 't Veld, Daan & van der Leij, Marco & Hommes, Cars, 2020. "The formation of a core-periphery structure in heterogeneous financial networks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    17. Chenghong Luo & Ana Mauleon & Vincent Vannetelbosch, 2021. "Network formation with myopic and farsighted players," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(4), pages 1283-1317, June.
    18. Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & Mauleon, Ana & Vannetelbosch, Vincent, 2009. "Farsightedly stable networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 526-541, November.
    19. Federica VIGANO & Andrea SALUSTRI, 2015. "Matching profit and Non-profit Needs: How NPOs and Cooperative Contribute to Growth in Time of Crisis. A Quantitative Approach," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 86(1), pages 157-178, March.
    20. Alexandre Belloni & Changrong Deng & Saša Pekeč, 2017. "Mechanism and Network Design with Private Negative Externalities," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 577-594, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Network formation; Social network analysis; Blogosphere; VOSON; Agentbased simulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ihs:ihsesp:218. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Doris Szoncsitz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deihsat.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.