It is plausible that the new types of social connectivity that are enabled by online social networks change the way in which social processes unfold in our networked society. In this project you will model and investigate how uprisings (think. e.g, the Arab Spring) may propagate on online social networks. Previous work on modeling revolutions on social networks (for example, see the links below) led to many new and so far unanswered questions. In particular, investigations and models to be considered may include propagation on a variety of networks (online social networks like Facebook or Twitter, physical contact networks, mobile phone networks), using different protocols (e.g., one-to-one messaging versus broadcasting), and dynamic rewiring of networks.
Relevant links: -John Lang and Hans De Sterck, 'A Hierarchy of Linear Threshold Models for the Spread of Political Revolutions on Social Networks', submitted, 2015. [pdf] [arXiv link] -John Lang and Hans De Sterck, 'The Arab Spring: A simple compartmental model for the dynamics of a revolution', Mathematical Social Sciences 69, 12-21, 2014. [pdf] [arXiv link] - Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation (WICI) seminar, January 2015. 'Mathematical modelling of social spreading processes'. [pdf]
Required:
-you should have taken a course on numerical computing and on ODEs
-experience with programming (any of Matlab, Python, C, Java, C++, ...)
Please email me if you are interested in this project or have questions about it. |
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