Directed Interaction Networks and their Impact on Social Media

This paper discusses how gossip propagates through modern social media. We simulate 80 random directed interaction networks to address three questions: 1) Does information propagation and consumption impact network structure? 2) Does network structure impact information propagation and consumption? 3) How do information propagation, information consumption and network structure affect the ability to synchronize innovation? We find that network structure and synchronization of innovation are distinct phenomena. Information flow influences network structure, and conversely. Thus both virtuous and vicious cycles of innovation are possible. Furthermore, the ability to synchronize innovation goes up with network density, but the efficiency of the network decreases once the number of shortest paths decrease. These findings are of particular importance to marketing experts who want to propagate their messages through modern social media.