/news-archive/tag/social-media-research/ 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Thu, 13 Dec 2018 19:53:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 /news-archive/2018/12/13/ara-fellow/ Thu, 13 Dec 2018 19:53:16 +0000 /news/?p=72947 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock鈥檚 Agarwal named Arkansas Research Alliance Fellow]]> , a distinguished professor of Information Science Department and head of the university鈥檚 Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (), was one of six new Fellows announced Thursday, Dec. 13,聽during a news conference at the Arkansas State Capitol. The ARA Fellows program, launched in 2014, recognizes research leaders who are currently working in Arkansas at one of the state鈥檚 five research campuses: University of Arkansas at Little Rock, University of Arkansas, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Arkansas State University, and also from the National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson, Arkansas, the only Food and Drug Administration lab located outside the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. ARA Fellows from university campuses receive a $75,000 grant. The ARA Fellows program was created to advance the mission of ARA by supporting world-class researchers whose work strengthens the competitiveness of the state through research. ARA Fellows focus on innovations in biomedical engineering, plant biochemistry, nanoscience, microbiology, nutritional improvements, electronics research and more, often resulting in a direct impact on the state鈥檚 economy. The alliance is celebrating 10 years of making research matter in Arkansas. 鈥淎RA impacts our state in so many positive ways, from increasing the amount of federal research funds available in Arkansas to accelerating the commercialization timetable, to connecting research to our established businesses,鈥� Gov. Asa Hutchinson said. Agarwal joined 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock鈥檚 Department of Information Science in August 2009. In 2013, he received early tenure and promotion to associate professor. In July 2015, he was awarded the Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair Professor of Information Science based on his聽outstanding contributions to his discipline. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Arizona State University. In 2012, Arkansas Business included Agarwal in its list of 鈥淭op 20 Influentials in their 20s,鈥� and in 2017 the Arkansas Times featured Dr. Agarwal in its special issue on 鈥淰isionary Arkansas: A Celebration of Arkansans with ideas and achievements of聽transformative power.鈥� Agarwal is highly respected for his social media research. He has collaborated with and received funding from influential national and international organizations such as NATO, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Research Lab, the U.S. Army Research Office, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research and Projects Agency, and the National Science Foundation. His recent research includes studying how governments and groups such as ISIS use social media to spread deviant messages, conduct propaganda campaigns, and influence opinions, behavior, and media coverage. For his contributions to industry, academia, and research, Agarwal also was nominated as a fellow to the International Academy, Research and Industry Association in 2017. Earlier this year, he was selected as a member of the U.S. State Department鈥檚 Tech Demo program to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation. Agarwal and COSMOS researchers will showcase technologies like Blogtrackers and YouTube trackers, one of COSMOS鈥� latest applications. These applications track information providers and narratives as misinformation is disseminated through social media networks including blogs, YouTube, and Twitter. The research is the result of projects supported by millions of dollars in federal grants. The other newly named ARA Fellows include the following:

• Jingyi Chen, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, 糖心Vlog传媒
• Steven Foley, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Division of Microbiology, NCTR
• Xiuzhen Huang, Ph.D., Professor of Computer Science, A-State
• Clint Kilts, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychiatry, 糖心Vlog传媒MS
• Mansour Mortazavi, Ph.D., Professor and Vice Chancellor, 糖心Vlog传媒PB

The six new ARA Fellows join existing ARA Scholars and Fellows in the ARA Academy of Scholars and Fellows, now 26 members strong. 鈥淎RA Fellows are nominated by their respective institutions,鈥� said Jerry Adams, ARA president and chief executive officer. 鈥淲e are honored to have these immensely talented researchers join the ARA Academy of Scholars and Fellows.鈥� In the top right photo,聽 Dr. Nitin Agarwal and his parents are pictured with Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.  ]]> /news-archive/2018/10/22/cosmos-bot-influence-research/ Mon, 22 Oct 2018 15:31:25 +0000 /news/?p=72424 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock research shows that bots may have less influence on people than previously thought]]> New research at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock digs into assumptions about the influence of bots on people鈥檚 opinions.聽 Some people often assume that disinformation campaigns carried out on social media by bots (a computer program that can automate social media messaging and content engagement) were highly effective in changing people鈥檚 opinions through repetition tactics. However, , a 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock doctoral student in computer and information science, tested this theory through an experiment to determine how easily a group of artificial agents could be influenced under three computation models. Artificial agents are simulated objects in a computer program that represent simplified versions of things, people in this case, in the real world. Stine is also a researcher at (Collaboratorium for Social Media and Behavioral Studies) 鈥� a research group led by, Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor of Information Science. Agarwal is a co-author of the study. The researchers adopted a strategy called amplification, commonly employed by bots within social media. They treat it as a simple agent strategy situated within three models of opinion dynamics using three different mechanisms of social influence. Although many studies have been published which show how bots propagate misinformation within social media, very few studies exist that show how the bots affect a population鈥檚 opinions. Three broad classes of social influence models used in this study were assimilative influence, similarity-biased influence, and repulsive influence. Each mechanism is a set of rules that govern how the artificial agents change their opinions. In assimilative influence, the artificial agents always compromise. They change their opinions to be more similar to each other. In similarity-biased influence, artificial agents will only compromise if their opinions are already similar enough to the other agents鈥� opinions. In repulsive influence, artificial agents will compromise if their opinions are already similar enough to the other agents鈥� opinions. However, if they are dissimilar, the agents will not compromise and instead change their opinions to become even more different. A total of 91 unique sets of conditions were tested for this study. For each of these, 500 simulation runs were performed and analyzed, totaling 45,500 simulation runs. 鈥淚t is often assumed that when bots on social media amplify some opinion, that inevitably more people will adopt the opinion being amplified,鈥� Stine said. 鈥淥ur findings suggest that this assumption only holds under very specific and rigid assumptions about how people influence each other.鈥� The researchers employed agent-based models (a class of computational models for simulating the actions and interactions with autonomous agents to measure the impact on the system) of opinion dynamics, which provide a useful environment for understanding and assessing social influence strategies. This approach allowed the researchers to build theory about the efficacy of various influence strategies and highlight potential gaps in the existing models. Stine and Agarwal observed that, in models where artificial agents are inherently polarizing, it is very difficult to sway the majority of the population鈥檚 opinions. It is only under complex strategies that the researchers found the agents could be influenced. In other words, agents who had strong inherent opinions are very less likely to be influenced. 鈥�Instead of simply repeating the same opinion over and over again, the complex strategies work by amplifying an initial opinion and then gradually shifting that opinion until it reaches the target opinion that the bot actually wants the population to adopt,鈥� Stine said. 鈥�While the findings presented in this paper are theoretical, they illustrate how small changes in our assumptions about how people influence each others鈥� opinions can dramatically affect the success or failure of a campaign that tries to manipulate a population鈥檚 opinions.鈥� In conclusion, the researchers theorize that it would be extremely challenging for bots to influence a real audience through only the use of repetition tactics employed by bots. 鈥淓xamining social influence strategies of bots from a theoretical perspective of agent-based models is not just timely and relevant, but also foundational in advancing our understanding of sociotechnical behaviors, their evolution, and effects on society and democratic values,鈥� Agarwal said. Stine presented the findings, 鈥�,鈥� at the International Conference on Complex Systems (ICCS 2018) July 22-27 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This research is funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Office of Naval Research, U.S. Air Force Research Lab, U.S. Army Research Office, U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Jerry L. Maulden/Entergy Endowment at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. In the upper right photo,聽Zachary Stine’s research involves examining the influence of bots on users of social media. Photo by Ben Krain.]]>