Information Diffusion in Social Networks

Dear Colleagues,

Studying social networks is the basis for understanding many complex phenomena in our societies.

When do social networks help the efficiency of economic and social activities, and when do they, instead, slow down the coordination and accruement of welfare? Do social networks provide a general informal answer to problems of integration and coexistence of different cultures, or do they increase polarization and segregation? The theory of complex networks has shown that the networks of human relations have statistical characteristics (as the so called ‘small world’ property) that accelerate the spread of opinions, but what if the behavior itself of people may either reduce this spread or instead incentivize the propagation of fake news? When is it the case that having wrong beliefs about reality does not only harm a single subject and his social neighbors, but may have cascade effects over a non-negligible portion of the overall society? In this respect, is the case of online social networks different from the case of real world acquaintances?

These are some of the questions at the core of this Special Issue.

Prof. Paolo Pin
Guest Editor

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