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Opinion evolution in the presence of constant propaganda: homogeneous and localized cases

  • Regular Article - Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
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Abstract

The opinion evolution of a group of agents arranged in a square lattice in the presence of external constant propaganda is studied. The contagion between agents is modeled according to the voter model, but the effect of external propaganda and a social temperature is also considered. At a first stage, the influence of the contagion probability, the temperature, and the value of the propaganda are analyzed for a homogeneous application of this last parameter. An analytical expression was found for the stationary state in some cases. Also, the effect of the spatial location of the propaganda is analyzed, where it is applied only to a subset of agents. The random distribution of agents affected by the propaganda was found to be the most effective, while for the case of distribution in patches and stripes, it depends on their size.

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Data Availability Statement

This manuscript has no associated data or the data will not be deposited. [Authors’ comment: The article in its current form has all the information needed to reproduce the presented results. There is no extra information or data that has been omitted.]

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful acknowledge to CONICET, Argentina, Foncyt, and Secyt, for financial support. Dr. Horacio Wio is also acknowledged for inspiring ideas. Computer clusters BACO, from UNSL and Verseo, from the Department of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, UNC, were employed. PMC and AJR-P are grateful to CONICET (Argentina) under project number PIP 112-201101-00615, and Universidad Nacional de San Luis (Argentina) under project No. 03-0816.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IFEG (CONICET), FaMAF (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba), Córdoba, Argentina

    María Cecilia Gimenez

  2. INFIQC (CONICET), Facultad de Ciencias Químicas (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba), Córdoba, Argentina

    Luis Reinaudi

  3. IIPsi (CONICET), Facultad de Psicología (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba), Córdoba, Argentina

    Ana Pamela Paz-García

  4. Departamento de Física, Instituto de Física Aplicada, Universidad Nacional de San Luis, CONICET, San Luis, Argentina

    Paulo Marcelo Centres & Antonio José Ramirez-Pastor

Authors
  1. María Cecilia Gimenez
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  2. Luis Reinaudi
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  3. Ana Pamela Paz-García
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  4. Paulo Marcelo Centres
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  5. Antonio José Ramirez-Pastor
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Contributions

MCG performed the simulations. All of the authors have contributed equally to the discussion and analysis of the model, interpretation of the results, and writing and editing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luis Reinaudi.

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Gimenez, M.C., Reinaudi, L., Paz-García, A.P. et al. Opinion evolution in the presence of constant propaganda: homogeneous and localized cases. Eur. Phys. J. B 94, 35 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/s10051-021-00047-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/s10051-021-00047-5

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