Opinion Dynamics

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haoxiang Xia ◽  
Huili Wang ◽  
Zhaoguo Xuan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Opinion Dynamics ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Physical Models ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modeling Tools ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
The Social

As a key sub-field of social dynamics and sociophysics, opinion dynamics utilizes mathematical and physical models and the agent-based computational modeling tools, to investigate the spreading of opinions in a collection of human beings. This research field stems from various disciplines in social sciences, especially the social influence models developed in social psychology and sociology. A multidisciplinary review is given in this paper, attempting to keep track of the historical development of the field and to shed light on its future directions. In the review, the authors discuss the disciplinary origins of opinion dynamics, showing that the combination of the social processes, which are conventionally studied in social sciences, and the analytical and computational tools, which are developed in mathematics, physics and complex system studies, gives birth to the interdisciplinary field of opinion dynamics. The current state of the art of opinion dynamics is then overviewed, with the research progresses on the typical models like the voter model, the Sznajd model, the culture dissemination model, and the bounded confidence model being highlighted. Correspondingly, the future directions of this academic field are envisioned, with an advocation for closer synthesis of the related disciplines.

Opinion Dynamics

2013 ◽  
pp. 311-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haoxiang Xia ◽  
Huili Wang ◽  
Zhaoguo Xuan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Opinion Dynamics ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Physical Models ◽  
Modeling Tools ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
The Social

As a key sub-field of social dynamics and sociophysics, opinion dynamics utilizes mathematical and physical models and the agent-based computational modeling tools, to investigate the spreading of opinions in a collection of human beings. This research field stems from various disciplines in social sciences, especially the social influence models developed in social psychology and sociology. A multidisciplinary review is given in this paper, attempting to keep track of the historical development of the field and to shed light on its future directions. In the review, the authors discuss the disciplinary origins of opinion dynamics, showing that the combination of the social processes, which are conventionally studied in social sciences, and the analytical and computational tools, which are developed in mathematics, physics and complex system studies, gives birth to the interdisciplinary field of opinion dynamics. The current state of the art of opinion dynamics is then overviewed, with the research progresses on the typical models like the voter model, the Sznajd model, the culture dissemination model, and the bounded confidence model being highlighted. Correspondingly, the future directions of this academic field are envisioned, with an advocation for closer synthesis of the related disciplines.

scholarly journals Post-Islamism and Intellectual Production: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Evolution of Contemporary Islamic Thought

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Mohamed Amine Brahimi ◽  
Houssem Ben Lazreg
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Scientific Field ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
The Social ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Thinking Differently ◽  
Intellectual Production ◽  
Representative Samples

The advent of the 1990s marked, among other things, the restructuring of the Muslim world in its relation to Islam. This new context has proved to be extremely favorable to the emergence of scholars who define themselves as reformists or modernists. They have dedicated themselves to reform in Islam based on the values of peace, human rights, and secular governance. One can find an example of this approach in the works of renowned intellectuals such as Farid Esack, Mohamed Talbi, or Mohamed Arkoun, to name a few. However, the question of Islamic reform has been debated during the 19th and 20th centuries. This article aims to comprehend the historical evolution of contemporary reformist thinkers in the scientific field. The literature surrounding these intellectuals is based primarily on content analysis. These approaches share a type of reading that focuses on the interaction and codetermination of religious interpretations rather than on the relationships and social dynamics that constitute them. Despite these contributions, it seems vital to question this contemporary thinking differently: what influence does the context of post-Islamism have on the emergence of this intellectual trend? What connections does it have with the social sciences and humanities? How did it evolve historically? In this context, the researchers will analyze co-citations in representative samples to illustrate the theoretical framework in which these intellectuals are located, and its evolution. Using selected cases, this process will help us to both underline the empowerment of contemporary Islamic thought and the formation of a real corpus of works seeking to reform Islam.

scholarly journals Introduction: Computer Simulations in Social Epistemology

Episteme ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Douven
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Computer Simulations ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Housing Prices ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Friendship Networks ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methodological Status

Over recent decades, computer simulations have become a common tool among practitioners of the social sciences. They have been utilized to study such diverse phenomena as the integration and segregation of different racial groups, the emergence and evolution of friendship networks, the spread of gossip, fluctuations of housing prices in an area, the transmission of social norms, and many more. Philosophers of science and others interested in the methodological status of these studies have identified a number of distinctive virtues of the use of computer simulations. For instance, it has been generally appreciated that as simulations require the formulation of an explicit algorithm, they foster precision and clarity about whatever conceptual issues are involved in the study. The value of computer simulations as a heuristic tool for developing hypotheses, models, and theories has also been recognized, as has been the fact that they can serve as a substitute for real experiments. This is especially useful in the social domain, given that human beings cannot be freely manipulated at the discretion of the experimenter (for both points, see Hartmann 1996). However, the main virtue of computer simulations is generally believed to be that they are able to deal with the complexities that arise when many elements interact in a highly dynamic system and which often evade an exact formal analysis (see, e.g., Humphreys 1991).

scholarly journals An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Michael Gaddis
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Social Desirability ◽  
Social Desirability Bias ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Discriminatory Behavior ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

An audit study is a specific type of field experiment primarily used to test for discriminatory behavior when survey and interview questions induce social desirability bias. In this chapter, I first review the language and definitions related to audit studies and encourage adoption of a common language. I then discuss why researchers use the audit method as well as when researchers can and should use this method. Next, I give an overview of the history of audit studies, focusing on major developments and changes in the overall body of work. Finally, I discuss the limitations of correspondence audits and provide some thoughts on future directions.

: Nations and Nationalism in British Political Studies

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles King
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
Methodological Eclecticism ◽  
British Study

This chapter attempts to provide a ‘reader’s guide’ to nationalism in British politics. It explores some of the major trends in the British study of nationalism and relates these to broader substantive and methodological concerns within the social sciences. The chapter focuses on most important comparative and conceptual studies of nationalism as a general political and historical phenomenon, rather than research limited to particular countries or periods. The defining features of British political studies, including a respect for methodological eclecticism and historically grounded research, have made British writers uniquely attuned to the importance of nationalism at times when many of their American colleagues dismissed it as the residuum of retarded modernization. The chapter concludes with some reflections on possible future directions for research and modest proposals for thinking about the study of nationalism and its relationship to broader debates within political science.

Education and cosmopolitanism: Liberating our non-cosmopolitan minds through mindfulness

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 610-627
Author(s):  
Oren Ergas
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Social Narratives ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Contemplative Studies ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Feeling At Home ◽  
Person Experience

This paper locates the main challenge for education in cosmopolitanism within the nature of education when interpreted as a “mind-making process.” Based on this interpretation, education is currently a process that shapes non-cosmopolitan minds, for the practices generally associated with it habituate the human mind to see “reality” through contingent social narratives. The aspiration of education in cosmopolitanism to cultivate “a sense of feeling at home and caring for the world,” requires practices that also liberate the mind from the contingencies of the social narratives into which it happens to be born. For such purpose, education requires an ethical meta-narrative, which applies to all human beings and appeals to a mutual human language. Following calls for embracing a pluralistic epistemology in policy making, this paper proposes the interdisciplinary field of contemplative studies that focuses on the understanding of the embodied mind, as a point of origin for considering education as such and education in cosmopolitanism in particular. Mindfulness is then interpreted as one possible practical pedagogy based on which we can practice detachment from the contingency of social narratives by cultivating grounded-ness in the non-contingency of pre-conceptual embodied first-person experience.

Race in Global Perspective

Sociology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurora Vergara-Figueroa
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Made In

Race and racism are key analytical constructs that express fundamental issues not only of power and inequality, but also of justice, democracy, equity, and emancipation. The study of race in the social sciences is an established, dynamic, multidisciplinary, and international field. Work began at the end of the 19th century. To study race with a global perspective, it is necessary to have a transdisciplinary view to read critically the phenomena that intersect with this variable. This field includes contributions from sociology, history, philosophy, legal studies, anthropology, cultural studies, political science, epidemiology, and journalism, among others. Several declarations have been made in recent years about the alleged end of racism or the end of a race-coded era. However, even though they are not new, every time they resurge these doxas underline new regimes of truth, reconfigure racisms, and strength inequality. The vast literature produced by scholars in this field provides evidence of how race is based on narratives created to enslave, subordinate, exploit, and exclude millions of human beings across the globe.

scholarly journals Methods for Classification of Text Data: Can the Potential of Quantitative Analysis Be Applied to Qualitative Research?

Inter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-96
Author(s):  
Marina Aleksandrova
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Item Nonresponse ◽  
Text Data ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Social ◽  
Textual Data ◽  
Analysis Of Results

Text mining has developed rapidly in recent years. In this article we compare classification methods that are suitable for solving problems of predicting item nonresponse. The author builds reasoning about how the analysis of textual data can be implemented in a wider research field based on this material. The author considers a number of metrics adapted for textual analysis in the social sciences: accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and gives examples that can help a sociologist figure out which of them is worth paying attention depending on the task at hand (classify text data with equal accuracy, or more fully describe one of the classes of interest). The article proposes an analysis of results obtained by analyzing texts based on the materials of the European Social Survey (ESS).

scholarly journals A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON EDUCATIONAL THOUGHTS OF ALLAMA IQBAL AND IMAM GHAZALI IN THE OPINION OF EDUCATIONIST

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-90
Author(s):  
Abdul Wahid
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ideal Teacher ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ideal Student ◽  
Made In

The study on a comparative study of educational thoughts of Allama Iqbal and Imam Ghazali) is made in order to know the contribution of Allama Iqbal Imam Ghazali in the educational system of Muslim world. Researcher use qualitative approach for this research in which interview was taken from the educationist of the Loralai city. Thoughts of both philosophers were analyzed by the respondents in which these results are found. These prominent philosophers have contributed a lot to the educational system of Muslim Umma. In the research it has been found that both legend philosophers ask that student should have to avoided bad character and they should have to adopt soul purity as well. Respect of teachers learning of Quran and Hadith, morality generosity and civility should have their actual and obligatory habits in their entire life. It has been concluded that an ideal student should adopt the useful and technical knowledge and he must have a clear and manifest objective of his knowledge in future to get desire target. The purpose of gaining Education is beneficial for society and individual as well. Apart from these, education will develop the student socially, morally and spiritually equally well. Education brings changes and efforts in human beings. The most important responsibility of the teacher is to develop spiritual insight and realize the difficulties of the students. it is the prime responsibility of the teacher to recognize the knowledge, ability and aptitude of the learners and motivate students towards lesson which is important to educational process. An ideal teacher disseminates the truth and teaches others without desire of getting reward or in the name of fame in the world. He follows the teaching of Islam truly. He should possess good moral and ethical character and act like role model for his students because the students learn from his character. Revealed knowledge i.e. Quran and Sunnah are the compulsory component of the curriculum. The subjects relating to humanities and social sciences essential for the social, material and spiritual betterment of humanity. In this context, Islamic culture and cultural languages, particularly Arabic should be the part of curriculum. Some recommendations for students’ teachers and curriculum development are that the students and teachers should recognize their responsibilities. Teacher should develop his own and student’s spiritual insight he should motivate students towards the learning process which is important for the educational process. He should simplify the difficult concepts and start learning from simple to complex and he should be sympathetic and Kind to the students. Students should put emphasis on soul purity he should not proud of themselves upon knowledge. He should learn the Quran and Hadiths. He must obey their parents, teacher and elders and should possess modesty, generosity and civility.   

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