Abstract

We investigate the impact of community structure on information diffusion with the linear threshold model. Our results demonstrate that modular structure may have counterintuitive effects on information diffusion when social reinforcement is present. We show that strong communities can facilitate global diffusion by enhancing local, intracommunity spreading. Using both analytic approaches and numerical simulations, we demonstrate the existence of an optimal network modularity, where global diffusion requires the minimal number of early adopters.

Date

2014

Authors

Azadeh Nematzadeh, Emilio Ferrara, Alessandro Flammini, Yong-Yeol Ahn

Journal

Physical review letters

Volume

113

Issue

8

Pages

088701

Publisher

American Physical Society