Tracing information flow on a global scale using Internet chain-letter data.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Liben-Nowell D
PROVIDER: S-EPMC2290760 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Tracing information flow on a global scale using Internet chain-letter data.
Liben-Nowell David D Kleinberg Jon J
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20080319 12
Although information, news, and opinions continuously circulate in the worldwide social network, the actual mechanics of how any single piece of information spreads on a global scale have been a mystery. Here, we trace such information-spreading processes at a person-by-person level using methods to reconstruct the propagation of massively circulated Internet chain letters. We find that rather than fanning out widely, reaching many people in very few steps according to "small-world" principles, ...[more]
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