Social Influence Analysis (SIA) in Online Social Networks

Leszkiewicz, Agata; Bucur, Doina; Grimme, Christian; Michalski, Radoslaw; Clever, Lena; Pohl, Janina Susanne; Rook, Jeroen; Bossek, Jakob; Preuss, Mike; Squillero, Giovanni; Quer, Stefano; Calabrese, Andrea; Iacca, Giovanni; Kizgin, Hatice; Trautmann, Heike

Abstract

Online social networks have become globally ubiquitous, and therefore are an arena where

important social phenomena can be observed: e.g. diffusion of (dis)information, social and

political polarization, as well as distribution of hate speech and radical content. To understand

their spread and effects, it is important to analyze and model the notion of social influence in

online networks. For empirical modeling, it is crucial to study the relational nature of

interactions between users of the networks, together with analyzing the content of

communications between them. This research focuses on investigating social influence in

online social networks as the fundamental principle for information diffusion that needs to

be modeled, parameterized, and measured. According to Google Scholar, in the first 5 months

of 2022 alone, scholars from multiple disciplines roughly produced 30,000 papers dealing with

the concept of influence in online social networks. This indicates that this research is indeed

a multidisciplinary challenge.

Keywords
Social Influence Analysis; User Networks; Social Media