Research on Public Opinion Propagation in Micro-Blogging Based on Epidemic Models

Micro-blogging has become an important communication channel for public opinion topics with its own characteristics such as openness, timeliness and interactive and so on. Studying the propagation rules for public opinion topics in micro-blogging is important to monitor and understand Micro-blogging public opinion. In this paper, we study the spreading process of public opinion in micro-blogging, identify key elements in the process and propose an Mb-RP (Micro-blogging Read-Post) propagation model based on the traditional SIR (SusceptibleInfective-Recovered) epidemic model. Through statistical analysis of a case on Sina Weibo, we assign values to parameters in the model and conduct simulations. Simulation results show that the model established in this paper can well fit real data. Further study of the model indicates that, compared with the attention cycle and the average amount of readings per post, the forwarding rate has the most influence on Micro-blogging information propagation.