The Role of Network Diffusion and Information Cascades in the Spread of Misinformation
Both fearing and despising yellow journalism, Adolph Simon Ochs became one of the most prominent and esteemed newspaper publishers of all time for his unwavering commitment to journalistic neutrality and high standards of ethics, which can be summed up in his ever-enduring slogan and approach to newspaper publication: that he only publishes “All the news […]
How Diffusion Influences the World of Fashion
“Fashion is ‘not just in clothing, but in all spheres’ of life.” – Georg Simmel Introduction to Diffusion in Fashion As referenced by Atik and Firat, scholars have long recognized fashion as a phenomenon affecting many aspects of our lives. What is more interesting, is the process of diffusion within fashion that impacts the behaviours […]
Can we predict diffusion and cascades on TikTok?
Do the concepts of diffusion of innovations need to be altered because of TikTok? I would argue yes. TikTok is a video sharing app which has recently exploded in popularity. TikTok is different, and personally I think more interesting, because of its “For You Page” which is a feed of videos selected by an algorithm […]
Epidemiology and Statistical Modeling
This semester has been particularly interesting to me as I have seen tremendous overlap in many of my courses. Whether it be analysis of network effects and friendship networks in INFO 2450, or the study of online advertisement auctioning in ECE 4450, I enjoyed the practical applicability of topics covered in Networks. Recently, we were […]
Cascading Behavior and the Fall of Tumblr
Being born right before the start of the 2000s meant that you lived in one of the prime times of the Internet. My first Facebook account was made when I was ten years old, and I had my first smartphone when I was in the sixth grade. As you can see, I […]
The Micro-purse Cascade: Why Tiny Purses Have an Immense Societal Impact
In January of this year, prior to COVID-19’s reign of terror, Americans looked forward to the introduction of novel technological innovations, new scientific findings, and new opportunities. In fact, members of the populace suggested that 2020 would pave the way for a decade similar to that of The Roaring Twenties. However, when our predecessors suggested […]
A Tragedy In 3 Acts: Property Rights, Video Game Consoles, and Our Natural Resources
This blog post was originally going to focus on a diffusion model for people abandoning cities due to the collapse of mass transit (you can read the WIRED article here). However, after the property lecture I was struck by a “cow” of a problem I had read about over the weekend: video game consoles. The […]
Diffusing a Korean messenger app to foreign territory
https://en.lab.appa.pe/2019-11/how-did-line-become-the-go-to-messaging-app-in-japan.html In class we learned about the social contagion of social networks. Professor Tardos mentioned a Hungarian social networking service which stayed rooted within the borders of Hungary and failed to go global. Some services successfully spread their wings while others vanish without a trace. While learning about diffusion of innovations and viral marketing, we […]
The simple rules of social contagion
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep04343 This scientific article explains how social contagion really happens. It discusses different social contagion models and explains the findings of a study researched by the authors. The article describes the concept of independent cascade models (ICM). ICM states that the more someone is exposed to a behavior, the more likely is that […]
Understanding mask wearing trends using diffusion
Source 1: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/need-to-know.html Source 2: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/36/21851 For the past 9 months or so, one of the most important topics discussed around the world has been how to slow the spread of Covid-19. As we learned in the epidemic module of this course, there are two key ways to control the spread of a pandemic. […]
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