Social movement recruitment and networks: a computational model (Abstract)

Geard, N L and Bullock, S (2008) Social movement recruitment and networks: a computational model (Abstract). The Fifth Conference of the European Social Simulation Association, Brescia, Italy. 31 Aug - 04 Sep 2008.

Abstract

Social movements are groups of people who come together to act collectively in support or opposition of some political or social issue. It is widely accepted that social ties between individuals are a key avenue of recruitment for social movements. Properties of the social network, such as the number and strength of ties, and the presence of well connected individuals, are important determinants of how effectively a social movement can recruit new members, and hence its probability of success. At the same time, an individual's participation in a social movement is likely to strongly influence the set of people they come in contact with, and hence on the set of individuals with whom they may form new social ties. Thus, there is a bidirectional relationship between the short term dynamic of group formation occurring on a social network, and the longer term topological evolution of that social network. Explicitly considering the relationship between group formation and social evolution raises two interesting questions: how does social network structure influence the effectiveness of group formation, and how does group formation influence the evolution of the social network? Here, we propose a simple model of group formation and social network evolution and investigate the extent to which the recruitment process of a social movement can bring about (or hamper) the emergence of structural conditions contributing to its success.

This record has no associated files available for download.

Contributors

Download statistics