Computer Engineering Commons^™

News Media Environment, Selective Perception, And The Survival Of Preference Diversity Within Communication Networks, Frank C.S. Liu, Paul E. Johnson

JITP 2011: The Future of Computational Social Science

There is a natural tension between the effects on public opinion of social networks and the news media. It is widely believed that social networks tend to harmonize opinions within them, but the presence of media may accentuate diversity by inserting discordant messages. On the other hand, in a totalitarian state where the government controls the media, social networks may mitigate the homogenizing pressure of a regime’s propaganda. The tendency of opinion to follow the “official line” may be mitigated because opponents of the government interact on a personal level and bolster one another’s views. This paper employs agent-based modeling—an …