Information dissemination processes in directed social networks

Konstantin Avrachenkov (1) , Koen de Turck (2) , Dieter Fiems (3) , Balakrishna Prabhu (4)

1 MAESTRO - Models for the performance analysis and the control of networks
2 SMACS Research Group
3 TELIN/UGent - Department of Telecommunications and Information Processing
4 LAAS - Laboratoire d'analyse et d'architecture des systèmes

Social networks can have asymmetric relationships. In the online social network Twitter, a follower receives tweets from a followed person but the followed person is not obliged to subscribe to the channel of the follower. Thus, it is natural to consider the dissemination of information in directed networks. In this work we use the mean-field approach to derive differential equations that describe the dissemination of information in a social network with asymmetric relationships. In particular, our model reflects the impact of the degree distribution on the information propagation process. We further show that for an important subclass of our model, the differential equations can be solved analytically.

Mots clés: Directed graphs; mean-field model; information dissemination; social networks

Domaines: Réseaux et télécommunications [cs.NI]

Konstantin Avrachenkov, Koen de Turck, Dieter Fiems, Balakrishna Prabhu. Information dissemination processes in directed social networks. International Workshop on Modeling, Analysis and Management of Social Networks and their Applications (SOCNET 2014), Mar 2014, Bamberg, Germany. pp.35-43. ⟨hal-00876873⟩