Gossip Empirical Propagation

Gossip Empirical Propagation

abstract

Gossip, the propagation of information through social contact, exhibits structures and dynamics unlike those of more easily studied social networks wich as online communities. Thus, we attempted to construct a map of the dynamics of propagation of gossip by tracing the flow of information about one single event through participants in the CSSS. Attendees were questioned regarding their gossip around one event - the serendipitous injury of one of the project team members. CSSS 2010 participants were requested to answer a survey online. Aside from questions on the information spread, individuals were also asked to quantify their strengths of relationship (i.e. how much contact they have) to other participants in the summer school. Individuals rated their perceived amount of contact with others in a scale from 1 to 7, with value 1 indicating that two individuals never made contact with each other. This information allowed us to construct a weighted social network. The results is a distinctive topology...

A separate project spun off from Gossip Theory.