Paper detail

Effects of Mass Media action on the Axelrod Model with Social Influence

The use of {\it dyadic interaction} between agents, in combination with {\it homophily} (the principle that ``likes attract'') in the Axelrod model for the study of cultural dissemination has two important problems: the prediction of monoculture in large societies and an extremely narrow window of noise levels in which diversity with local convergence is obtained. Recently, the inclusion of {\it social influence} has proven to overcome them (A. Flache and M. W. Macey, arXiv:0808.2710). Here we extend the Axelrod model with social influence interaction for the study of Mass Media effects through the inclusion of a super-agent which acts over the whole system and has nonnull overlap with each agent of the society. The dependence with different parameters as the initial social diversity, size effects, Mass Media strength and noise is outlined. Our results might be relevant in several socio-economic contexts and for the study of the emergence of collective behavior in complex social systems.