Propagation regularity of hot topics in Sina Weibo based on SIR model — A simulation research

Abstract

Sina Weibo, as one of the most popular and fast growing social network, has gradually become the field where hot topics appear, propagate, and outbreak. In order to explore and find out the propagating regularity of hot topics on the platform of micro-blog, a novel approach based on a well-known epidemic model called SIR is proposed in this paper to understand and explain hot topics spreading dynamics, which takes the structure information and propagation characteristics of Sina Weibo into consideration. The event of flight MH370 vanished is being used to test the modified topic transmission model based on SIR. The experimental results show that the fitting degree between simulation results and the historical data is high and indicates that there is a high feasibility of this model to research on the propagating regularity of hot topics spreading on Sina Weibo.

Characterizing super-spreading in microblog: An epidemic-based information propagation model

“…These information propagation models are modified based on conventional epidemic models, such as the SIR model, the SEIR model, etc. Based on the SIR model, Li et al [12] considered various kinds of user behaviors on Weibo and divide users into four groups with different transition rates between groups. Meng et al [13] added a new compartment into the conventional SIR model in order to catch the phenomenon of rumor spreading in real life.…”