Rise of an alternative majority against opinion leaders

Abstract

We investigate the role of opinion leaders or influentials in the collective\nbehavior of a social system. Opinion leaders are characterized by their\nunidirectional influence on other agents. We employ a model based on Axelrod's\ndynamics for cultural interaction among social agents that allows for\nnon-interacting states. We find three collective phases in the space of\nparameters of the system, given by the fraction of opinion leaders and a\nquantity representing the number of available states: one ordered phase having\nthe state imposed by the leaders; another nontrivial ordered phase consisting\nof a majority group in a state orthogonal or alternative to that of the opinion\nleaders, and a disordered phase, where many small groups coexist. We show that\nthe spontaneous rise of an alternative group in the presence of opinion leaders\ndepends on the existence of a minimum number of long-range connections in the\nunderlying network. This phenomenon challenges the common idea that\ninfluentials are fundamental to propagation processes in society, such as the\nformation of public opinion.\n