In this paper, we investigate, how information about a common food born
health hazard, known as Campylobacter, spreads once it was delivered to a
random sample of individuals in France. The central question addressed here is
how individual characteristics and the various aspects of social network
influence the spread of information. A key claim of our paper is that
information diffusion processes occur in a patterned network of social ties of
heterogeneous actors. Our percolation models show that the characteristics of
the recipients of the information matter as much if not more than the
characteristics of the sender of the information in deciding whether the
information will be transmitted through a particular tie. We also found that at
least for this particular advisory, it is not the perceived need of the
recipients for the information that matters but their general interest in the
topic