Problem Statement
Social media is a powerful tool for spreading ideas. These ideas can be harmless, helpful, or sometimes dangerous. Recent events have revealed social media's potential for circulating misinformation and harmful ideologies. Our research is particularly interested in extremist ideologies, which are loosely described as belief systems that are radically different from the beliefs of mainstream society. We also identify several other characteristics of extremism, including an "us vs. them" ideology, specialized language, and promotion or admiration of violent action. Social media can create a platform for these extremist ideas, allowing them to reach a wider, and often anonymous, audience. If we could understand how extremist ideas spread through a social network, we may be able to identify deeper characteristics of extremist movements. For the purpose of analysis, the network of users in these communities, along with the ideas that are exchanged between them, can be viewed as a dynamical system.
Several academic communities seek to study dynamical systems, so for the purpose of our research, we will focus on the mathematical modeling of dynamical systems involving people. There are several fields of mathematics that have been used to model these relationships. Namely, we focus on studies done in game theory and graph theory. Game theory researchers have investigated how strategies change and evolve over the course of mathematical games, and how the strategies humans have developed might be beneficial. Graph theory studies have sought to create representations of these populations that can be analyzed to glean insight into their interactions. In either case, previous models suffer from simplicity, ignoring factors that contribute to the complexity of human interactions.
Several academic communities seek to study dynamical systems, so for the purpose of our research, we will focus on the mathematical modeling of dynamical systems involving people. There are several fields of mathematics that have been used to model these relationships. Namely, we focus on studies done in game theory and graph theory. Game theory researchers have investigated how strategies change and evolve over the course of mathematical games, and how the strategies humans have developed might be beneficial. Graph theory studies have sought to create representations of these populations that can be analyzed to glean insight into their interactions. In either case, previous models suffer from simplicity, ignoring factors that contribute to the complexity of human interactions.
Research Questions
- How can we model the evolution of a dynamical system over time?
- How can this model be used to predict the spread of extremist ideas in a social population?
- What generalizations about extremist ideologies can be made from this model?
Scope
We limit the scope of our project to interactions over social media. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow us to easily view connections between people through Friends and Followers and track the spread of information through tags and sharing. There are many available data sets of social media trends, and we can create our own by scraping sites and grouping posts by topic.
Timeline
Sophomore Year 2019-2020:
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Junior Year 2020-2021:
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Senior Year 2021-2022:
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