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Published on: September 28, 2018
Limits of social mobilization
Alex Rutherford1, Manuel Cebrian, Sohan Dsouza
1Computing and Information Science, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi 54224, United Arab Emirates.
Summary
Social mobilization via the internet can achieve critical tasks but faces limits. Success depends on highly connected individuals, yet risks of failure remain significant, cautioning against overestimating reliability.
Area of Science:
- Network Science
- Computational Social Science
- Crowdsourcing
Background:
- The internet and social media facilitate large-scale mobilization for time-critical tasks like crisis mapping and search-and-rescue.
- Selection bias may lead to overestimated efficacy of social mobilization, necessitating an understanding of its operational limits and reliability.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the constraints posed by social and information network structures on social mobilization.
- To assess the reliability and limits of time-critical social mobilization using a real-world scenario.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the DARPA Network Challenge as a case study for social media-based crowd-finding.
- Conducted high-resolution simulations of referral-based crowdsourcing to analyze population recruitment, geographic coverage, and completion time.
Main Results:
- Social mobilization achieved the objective without mass media, operating at the limits of time-critical capabilities.
- Success critically depended on highly connected individuals mobilizing distant networks, overcoming local diffusion trapping.
- A significant risk of unsuccessful search persisted even under favorable conditions.
Conclusions:
- Time-critical social mobilization is plausible but operates at its limits, with success contingent on specific network structures and individual actions.
- Findings suggest a need for improved incentive schemes for social mobilization and caution in assessing its reliability.
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