Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 25: Poster session

SOE 25.18: Poster

Thursday, March 14, 2013, 17:15–19:00, Poster C

A Big Data approach to the governing rules of "No. 10 Downing Street" — Scott A. Hale, •Taha Yasseri, and Helen Z. Margetts — Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Analysing the collectively generated Big Data in cyberspace has significantly enriched our understanding of social phenomena in recent years. In this work, we focus on mobilization activities within the framework of the UK Government website, "No. 10 Downing Street". We consider a sample of 8,000 petitions and follow their dynamics in a period of two years. We extract the empirical laws governing the growth of the petitions in regard to the number of supporting individuals. We observe the importance of early time evolution of the petitions in determining the overall success of them over long time periods. Moreover, we measure the critical mass needed for a successful percolation of each petition in a giant piece of the society. Our results, not only deepen our knowledge on the mechanisms behind the growth and spread of socio-political ideas and opinions, but also could be considered to develop and enhance infrastructures to facilitate more effective government-society interactions.