Influence and Belief Flow in Social Networks

Abstract

Online social networks have become a dominant and widespread way to interact with others who have the same or different beliefs as one another and the dynamic nature of social networks is useful in modeling various interactions to understand how belief and knowledge can change within them, given various circumstances. Dynamic Epistemic Logics are extensions of epistemic knowledge-based logic, which are logics that can be used to reason about information and information change as agents communicate with one another, and concerns itself with logical approaches to knowledge, beliefs and related notions (Kooi, 2003). Dynamic Epistemic Logic shows promise for this project, with its focus on analyzing knowledge and belief. Since formal logic models have seldom been explored in social networks, the goal of this project is to create a logic that provides an accurate model of belief flow in social networks. This work fits into Dr. Sophia Knight’s wider project on formally modeling information flow, belief change, and polarization in social networks. Knight has already developed and implemented a basic formal model of social networks that involves bias-influenced belief updates and interaction models within the network that allows for various ways in which society can be interconnected through influence and groups (Alvim, Knight, Valencia, 2019).