https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2008-00342-3
Opinion dynamics on directed small-world networks
1
Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and
Technology of China, Hefei 230026, P.R. China
2
Department of Physics, Ningbo University, Ningbo Zhejiang
315211, P.R. China
3
Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Muse
3, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
Corresponding authors: a jiangluo@mail.ustc.edu.cn - b bhwang@ustc.edu.cn
Received:
18
January
2008
Revised:
22
July
2008
Published online:
10
September
2008
In this paper, we investigate the self-affirmation effect on formation of public opinion in a directed small-world social network. The system presents a non-equilibrium phase transition from a consensus state to a disordered state with coexistence of opinions. The dynamical behaviors are very sensitive to the density of long-range-directed interactions and the strength of self-affirmation. When the long-range-directed interactions are sparse and individual generally does not insist on his/her opinion, the system will display a continuous phase transition, in the opposite case with strong self-affirmation and dense long-range-directed interactions, the system does not display a phase transition. Between those two extreme cases, the system undergoes a discontinuous phase transition.
PACS: 89.75.-k – Complex systems / 89.65.-s – Social and economic systems / 05.70.Fh – Phase transitions: general studies / 05.50.+q – Lattice theory and statistics (Ising, Potts, etc.)
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2008