Düring, Bertram and Wolfram, Marie-Therese (2015) Opinion dynamics: inhomogeneous Boltzmann-type equations modelling opinion leadership and political segregation. Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Science, 471 (2182). ISSN 1364-5021

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Abstract

We propose and investigate different kinetic models for opinion formation, when the opinion formation process depends on an additional independent variable, e.g. a leadership or a spatial variable. More specifically, we consider: (i) opinion dynamics under the effect of opinion leadership, where each individual is characterised not only by its opinion, but also by another independent variable which quantifies leadership qualities; (ii) opinion dynamics modelling political segregation in the `The Big Sort', a phenomenon that US citizens increasingly prefer to live in neighbourhoods with politically like-minded individuals. Based on microscopic opinion consensus dynamics such models lead to inhomogeneous Boltzmann-type equations for the opinion distribution. We derive macroscopic Fokker-Planck-type equations in a quasi-invariant opinion limit and present results of numerical experiments.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences > Mathematics
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics
Depositing User:	Bertram During
Date Deposited:	05 Oct 2015 11:47
Last Modified:	06 Aug 2019 09:45
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/56997

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