On new characterizations of social influence in social networks

Makan Fardad, Fu Lin, Xi Zhang, Mihailo R. Jovanovic

Research output: Chapter in Book/Entry/PoemConference contribution

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

We propose new characterizations of social influence, which quantify both the transient and the steady-state propagation of beliefs across society. These characterizations are used to optimally choose a desired number of agents in a social network to serve as social leaders with maximal social impact. We then consider a framework for optimally creating new social links subject to resource constraints, in order to improve the influence of designated agents or social leaders. We show that the formulated optimization problems are convex with respect to the individual elements of the optimization variables. This motivates the use of the coordinate descent method, a simple but efficient algorithm well-suited to large-scale optimization problems. Finally, using demonstrative examples, we compare the ability of our proposed characterizations of social influence in identifying the most influential agents with that of other measures of influence developed in the social networks literature.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2013 American Control Conference, ACC 2013
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages4777-4782
Number of pages6
ISBN (Print)9781479901777
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013
Event2013 1st American Control Conference, ACC 2013 - Washington, DC, United States
Duration: Jun 17 2013Jun 19 2013

Publication series

NameProceedings of the American Control Conference
ISSN (Print)0743-1619

Other

Other2013 1st American Control Conference, ACC 2013
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityWashington, DC
Period6/17/136/19/13

Keywords

  • Betweenness centrality
  • consensus
  • convex relaxation
  • coordinate descent
  • leader selection
  • optimization
  • social influence
  • social networks
  • sparsity
  • stochastic matrices

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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