Abstract

Social networks are widely used nowadays to engage in conversations about a variety of topics. Over time, these discussions can have a significant impact on people’s opinions. Works in sociology and other areas have provided mathematical models to simulate such opinion formation processes, and in the past decade it has become popular to consider the computational aspects of these models, motivated by the widespread use of online social networks. The goal is to obtain a better understanding of real-world phenomena, such as increasing polarization and filter bubbles. In this tutorial we aim to provide an overview of the opinion formation literature. We will present the most important opinion models that are studied in this context, and will discuss some of the computational challenges that have arisen recently. We will also reflect on emerging applications and directions for future work.

Slides

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Please see the dedicated pages at the top for an outline of the tutorial, more information on the speakers and a list of references that we will discuss in the tutorial.

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