Competition-induced criticality in a model of meme popularity

Heavy-tailed distributions of meme popularity occur naturally in a model of meme diffusion on social networks. Competition between multiple memes for the limited resource of user attention is identified as the mechanism that poises the system at criticality. The popularity growth of each meme is des...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2014-01, Vol.112 (4), p.048701-048701, Article 048701
Main Authors: Gleeson, James P, Ward, Jonathan A, O'Sullivan, Kevin P, Lee, William T
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Asymptotic properties
Competition
Computer Graphics
Diffusion
Empirical analysis
Exponents
Humans
Information Dissemination
Mathematical models
Models, Theoretical
Social Behavior
Social networks
Social Support
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Summary:Heavy-tailed distributions of meme popularity occur naturally in a model of meme diffusion on social networks. Competition between multiple memes for the limited resource of user attention is identified as the mechanism that poises the system at criticality. The popularity growth of each meme is described by a critical branching process, and asymptotic analysis predicts power-law distributions of popularity with very heavy tails (exponent α
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.112.048701