Modeling and quantifying the influence of opinion involving opinion leaders on delayed information propagation dynamics

Fulian Yin, Xiaowei Zhu, Xueying Shao, Xinyu Xia, Yanyan Pan, Jianhong Wu

Abstract: In this letter, an opinion-delay susceptible-forwarding-immunized model (OD-SFI) is proposed to investigate the influence of opinion involving opinion leaders, expressed in two pieces of information posted online subsequently, on the propagation dynamics of both information. The model describes the evolution of forwarding quantities, introduces homogeneity and/or heterogeneity index of opinions, and describes how these measures impact the propagation efficacy. Data fitting using the real data of Chinese Sina-microblog can accurately parameterize the model, quantify the opinion mutual influence; and sensitivity analyses also suggest strategies for effective information dissemination.