Belief Dynamics in Complex Social Networks

Abstract

People are becoming increasingly more connected to each other in social media networks. These networks are complex because in general there can be many di fferent types of relations, as well as di fferent degrees of strength for each one; moreover, these relations are dynamic because they can change over time. In this context, users' knowledge flows over the network, and modeling how this occurs - or can possibly occur - is therefore of great interest from a knowledge representation and reasoning perspective. In this paper, we focus on the problem of how a single user's knowledge base changes when exposed to a stream of news items coming from other members in the network. As a first step towards solving this problem, we identify possible solutions leveraging preexisting belief merging operators, and conclude that there is a gap that needs to be bridged between the application of such operators and a principled solution to the proposed problem.