Preliminary Study on Bit-String Modelling of Opinion Formation in Complex Networks

Opinion formation has been the topic of increased research interest recently, and various models have been proposed. These models, however, have their limitations, including (i) it is generally assumed that adjacent nodes holding similar opinions will further reduce the difference between them, while adjacent nodes holding significantly different opinions would either do nothing, or cut the link in between them; (ii) opinion mutation, described as “opinion change not due to neighborhood influences” in real life, is typically random. While such models are simple but still help reveal useful insights, they lack the capability of describing many complex behaviors which we may easily observe in real life. In this paper, we propose a new bit-string modeling approach. Preliminary study on the new model demonstrates its great potential in revealing complex behaviors of social opinion evolution and formation. Keywords—complex network; opinion formation; bit-string modeling; opinion mutation.