It’s Not Just About Mobility: How Can Mobility Datasets Advance our Understanding of Information Diffusion?

• In Event: Temporal and Spatial Analysis of Mobility Data

Abstract

Social media platforms and mobile devices serve as social sensors in tracking and documenting the temporal and spatial features of human behavior steadily and continuously. The streaming geo-tagged behavioral information has led to the development of very rich mobility datasets, which stimulates and challenges the creativity of communication researchers in theorization, statistical modelling, and data visualization., The talk will focus on how geo-tagged datasets on social media can advance our understanding of information diffusion process. In particular, this talk will introduce how geo-tagged datasets can be employed to (1) map the spatio-temporal diffusion of information at both individual and aggregate level, (2) quantify the interaction between users from different geolocations in the diffusion process, and (3) predict the spatio-temporal diffusion of information.

Authors

• Winson Peng, Michigan State U

• Jonathan J. H. Zhu, City U of Hong Kong