A grid model to address the behaviour of the nodes in the dissemination of information

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to present a framework to address the impact of people’s behaviour in the dissemination of information through mobile social networks. Design/methodology/approach This approach follows the epidemical compartmental models and uses a grid to model the nodes’ (people) behaviour in the dissemination process. The nodes’ status is determined by binary rules that update and define the flow of information between neighbour nodes. An improved stacked-layer grid model is used to implement modulations in the application of the rules and neighbourhoods to model the impact of people’s attitude, which may improve or jeopardize the efficiency of the process. Findings This proposal shows how grid architecture is a valuable tool to model different causes of malfunction of data dissemination. Combining different grids with different neighbourhoods and different local rules provides a wide range of possibilities to depict the impact of human awareness and decision on the dissemination of data. Originality/value This works develops a new approach for the analysis of dissemination of information which add new features to traditional methods for modelling local interactions and describing the dynamics of the communication patterns in the population.