Information technology and the topologies of transmission : a research area for historical simulation

This paper surveys possibilities for applying the methods of agent-based simulation to the study of historical transitions in communication technology

Dynamics of Uncertain Opinion Formation: An Agent-Based Simulation

Abstract: Opinion formation describes the dynamics of opinions in a group of interaction agents and is a powerful tool for predicting the evolution and di usion of the opinions. The existing opinion formation studies assume that the agents express their opinions by using the exact number, i.e., the exact opinions. However, when people express their opinions, sentiments, and support emotions regarding di erent issues, such as politics, products, and events, they o en cannot provide the exact opinions but express uncertain opinions. Furthermore, due to the di erences in culture backgrounds and characters of agents, people who encounter uncertain opinions o en show di erent uncertainty tolerances. The goal of this study is to investigate the dynamics of uncertain opinion formation in the framework of bounded confidence. By taking di erent uncertain opinions and di erent uncertainty tolerances into account, we use an agent-based simulation to investigate the influences of uncertain opinions in opinion formation from two aspects: the ratios of the agents that express uncertain opinions and the widths of the uncertain opinions, and also provide the explanations of the observations obtained

Communication in Online Social Networks Fosters Cultural Isolation

Online social networks play an increasingly important role in communication between friends, colleagues, business partners, and family members. This development sparked public and scholarly debate about how these new platforms affect dynamics of cultural diversity. Formal models of cultural dissemination are powerful tools to study dynamics of cultural diversity but they are based on assumptions that represent traditional dyadic, face-To-face communication, rather than communication in online social networks. Unlike in models of face-To-face communication, where actors update their cultural traits after being influenced by one of their network contacts, communication in online social networks is often characterized by a one-To-many structure, in that users emit messages directly to a large number of network contacts. Using analytical tools and agent-based simulation, we show that this seemingly subtle difference can have profound implications for emergent dynamics of cultural dissemination. In particular, we show that within the framework of our model online communication fosters cultural diversity to a larger degree than offline communication and it increases chances that individuals and subgroups become culturally isolated from their network contacts