The Public Opinion Evolution under Group Interaction in Different Information Features

Abstract

Before expressing opinions, most people usually consider the standpoint of their friends nearby to avoid being isolated, which may lead to the herding effect. The words of celebrities in social networks usually attract public attention and affect the opinion evolution in the entire network. This process also causes the similar status quo. In this study, we find that the key figures play the guiding roles in public opinions who undertake the group pressure from information amount. Therefore, we build the cost function on opinion changes to study opinion evolution rules for public persons based on the spreading scope of information and information amount. Simulation analysis reveals that the information amount held by agents will affect the converging speed of public opinions, while enhancing the ability of key nodes may no more effective in guiding public opinion.

The Role of Online Media in Shaping Public Opinion about the Prospects for Peace and Military Conflict

“…We found no discernible impact of authoritative figures (experts) on shaping public opinion during martial law, which would contradict other researchers' findings (Wei et al, 2022). We explain this trend by the depreciation of the expert-analyst's figure in modern Ukrainian society due to the consistently inaccurate predictions regarding the progression of events.…”

“…The key factors of shaping public sentiment are as follows: information, media, social interaction, education and life experience of members of society, the social and political context of interaction, emotions, and values of participants in interaction (Ausat, 2023). As noted by Wei et al (2022), authoritative public figures known to the general public significantly influence public opinion. The experimental confirmation of the influence exerted by both the majority and expert opinion on forming a collective stance towards certain phenomena was shown (Moussaïd et al, 2013).…”

Online Fake News Opinion Spread and Belief Change: A Systematic Review

“…However, Mansouri and Taghiyareh [82] show that when influential leaders exist in a social network, segregation has less impact on opinion formation than the effect created by INFLs. This shows how INFLs are key drivers of belief change in opinion networks [97], including public opinion formation [92]. This effect was also verified when mass media played the role of INFLs [84].…”

Research on the Sentiment Analysis and Evolutionary Mechanism of Sudden Network Public Opinion Based on SNA-ARIMA Model with Text Mining

“…In emergency situations, network-based emergency response has more advantages than traditional hierarchical response [23]. Wei et al [24] constructed a cost function for public opinion change and studied the evolution law of public opinion based on the scope and amount of information dissemination by public figures. They found that key figures play a guiding role in public opinion, and they bear group pressure from the amount of information.…”