Tracking and modelling information diffusion across interactive online media

Information spreads rapidly across Web sites, Web logs and online forums. This paper describes the research framework of the IDIOM Project (Information Diffusion across Interactive Online Media), which analyzes this process by identifying redundant content elements, mapping them to an ontological knowledge structure, and tracking their temporal and geographic distribution. Linguists define "idiom" as an expression whose meaning is different from the literal meanings of its component words. Similarly, the study of information diffusion promises insights that cannot be inferred from individual network elements. This paper presents underlying technology, initial results, and the future roadmap of investigating information diffusion based on ontological knowledge structures. Similar projects often focus on particular media, or neglect important aspects of the human language. This paper addresses these gaps to reveal fundamental mechanisms of information diffusion across media with distinct interactive characteristics.