Social Media Mining: An Introduction

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CUUS2079-07 CUUS2079-Zafarani 978 1 107 01885 3 January 13, 2014 17:17

200 Information Diffusion in Social Media

We discussed three models in this section: internal, external, and mixed

influence. Depending on the model used to describe the diffusion of inno-

vations process, the respective equation forA(t) (Equations7.22,7.24,or

7.26) should be employed to model the system.

7.3.4 Intervention

Consider a faulty product being adopted. The product company is planning

to stop or delay adoptions until the product is fixed and re-released. This

intervention can performed by doing the following:

 Limiting the distribution of the product or the audience that can adopt

the product. In our mathematical model, this is equivalent to reducing

the populationPthat can potentially adopt the product.

 Reducing interest in the product being sold. For instance, the company

can inform adopters of the faulty status of the product. In our models,

this can be achieved by tamperingα: settingαto a very small value

in Equation7.22results in a slow adoption rate.

 Reducing interactions within the population. Reduced interactions

result in less imitation of product adoptions and a general decrease in

the trend of adoptions. In our models, this can be achieved by setting

βto a small value.

7.4 Epidemics

In an Epidemic a disease spreads widely within a population. This process

consists of apathogen(the disease being spread), a population ofhosts

(humans, animals, and plants, among others), and a spreading mechanism

(breathing, drinking, sexual activity, etc.). Unlike information cascades and

herding, but similar to diffusion of innovations models, epidemic models

assume an implicit network and unknown connections among individuals.

This makes epidemic models more suitable when we are interested in global

patterns, such as trends and ratios of people getting infected, and not in who

infects whom.

In general, a complete understanding of the epidemic process requires

substantial knowledge of the biological process withineachhost and the

immune system process, as well as a comprehensive analysis of interac-

tions among individuals. Other factors such as social and cultural attributes

also play a role in how, when, and where epidemics happen. Large epi-

demics, also known aspandemics, have spread through human populations