Online Social Networks Foster Cultural Isolation

• In Event: 3453 - From Classic Questions to New Frontiers: Current Work in Mathematical Sociology

Abstract

Online social-networks play an increasingly important role in communication between friends, colleagues, business partners, and family members, which sparked public and scholarly debate about how these new platforms affect dynamics of cultural diversity. Formal models of cultural dissemination (Axelrod, 1997) are powerful tools to study such dynamics but they are based on assumptions that represent traditional dyadic, face-to-face communication, rather than communication in online social networks. Unlike in models of face-to-face communication where actors update their cultural traits after being influenced by one of their network contacts, communication in online social networks is reversed, and multilateral, in that users emit messages directly to a large number of network contacts. Using analytical tools and agent-based simulation, we show that this seemingly subtle difference can have profound implications for emergent dynamics of cultural dissemination. In particular, we show that online communication fosters cultural diversity to a larger degree than offline interaction. Furthermore, online communication increases chances that individuals become culturally isolated from their network contacts.

Authors

• Marijn Alexis Keijzer, University of Groningen

• Michael Maes, University of Groningen

• Andreas Flache, University of Groningen