Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Probabilistic Safety Assessment & Management (PSAM)
88 Effects of Network Structure on Public Opinion Development (PSAM-0116)
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Published:2006
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Recently, acceptance or rejection of advanced technologies or large-scale development is discussed socially, and sometimes it becomes a serious issue. Under such circumstances, participatory approaches of social decision-making are attracting people's interest, and public opinion is a key factor in such a decision scheme. In this research, dynamics of opinion development is compared between different network models by multi-agent simulation. In conclusion, many useful insights on the process of public opinion development were obtained from the simulation. In addition to effects of network structure, effects of opinion leaders and stability of public opinion against manipulation were shown. These results show both positive and negative aspects for public opinion development.