Modeling the Change of Public Opinion Caused by Opinion Posts’ Dissemination in Social Networks

The various extensively used social platforms make it possible for the public to facilitate quick and easy sharing of information as well as express their views and opinions in real time, which can lead to the rapid outbreak of online public opinion. To simulate the change of online public opinion resulting from opinion posts’ dissemination in social networks, this study proposes a more realistic and novel model named as Agent-Based Opinion Dissemination model. It provides the additional advantage to incorporate the effect of real-world characteristics from the perspective of outer interventions and individuals’ attributes. The experimental results show that our model can simulate the evolution of public opinion, thus providing a clearer explanation of the law and causes of public opinion’s evolution from the perspective of individual and media behavior.