Information flow on social networks: from empirical data to situation understanding

Heather Roy; Tarek Abdelzaher; Elizabeth K. Bowman; Md. Tanvir Al Amin

doi:10.1117/12.2266585

3 May 2017 Information flow on social networks: from empirical data to situation understanding

Heather Roy, Tarek Abdelzaher, Elizabeth K. Bowman, Md. Tanvir Al Amin

Proceedings Volume 10207, Next-Generation Analyst V; 1020702 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2266585
Event: SPIE Defense + Security, 2017, Anaheim, CA, United States

Abstract

This paper describes characteristics of information flow on social channels, as a function of content type and relations among individual sources, distilled from analysis of Twitter data as well as human subject survey results. The working hypothesis is that individuals who propagate content on social media act (e.g., decide whether to relay information or not) in accordance with their understanding of the content, as well as their own beliefs and trust relations. Hence, the resulting aggregate content propagation pattern encodes the collective content interpretation of the underlying group, as well as their relations. Analysis algorithms are described to recover such relations from the observed propagation patterns as well as improve our understanding of the content itself in a language agnostic manner simply from its propagation characteristics. An example is to measure the degree of community polarization around contentious topics, identify the factions involved, and recognize their individual views on issues. The analysis is independent of the language of discourse itself, making it valuable for multilingual media, where the number of languages used may render language-specific analysis less scalable.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Heather Roy, Tarek Abdelzaher, Elizabeth K. Bowman, and Md. Tanvir Al Amin "Information flow on social networks: from empirical data to situation understanding", Proc. SPIE 10207, Next-Generation Analyst V, 1020702 (3 May 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2266585

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available