Methods for Information Diffusion Analysis

Abstract

Information diffusion is a fundamental process taking place on the Internet. Every day, various pieces of information are published and further disseminated through news articles and user messages. Even though this process can be explicitly observed, it is difficult to determine individual information pathways. The penetration of the global information environment into all spheres of everyday life radically changes the rate and ways of information diffusion. In this review, we discuss models of online information flows while dividing them into two groups: explanatory models (which imply the existence of an underlying network over which information propagates) and predictive models (which are used to investigate the spread of individual information flows). Despite the complexity of analyzing basic characteristics of information diffusion, this analysis is necessary to understand general processes that occur in the information society.