Naming Game Dynamics on Pairs of Connected Networks with Competing Opinions

Abstract

We study the Naming Game (NG) dynamics when two disjoint networks with nodes in consensus on competing opinions are connected with new links. We consider two sets of networks; one contains several networks with real-life communities, the other networks generated with the Watts-Strogatz and Barabási-Albert models. For each set, we run NG on all the possible pairs of networks and observe whether a consensus is reached to determine network features that correlate highly with such outcome. The main conclusion is that the quality of network community structure informs network’s ability to resist or exert influence from/on others. Moreover, the outcomes depend on whether Speaker-First of Listener-First NG is run and on whether a speaker or listener is biased towards high or low degree nodes. The results reveal strategies that may be used to enable and accelerate convergence to consensus in social networks.