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Sociophysical model of mass media influence on a social system

Abstract:

After a brief review of the recent field of Sociophysics, we present a cellular automata model of an external cultural influence or message, such as a controlled mass media, acting on a social system. The model is based on the rules of cultural dissemination proposed by Axelrod. It is found that the external message induces a phase transition in the system: if the intensity of the message is less than some threshold value, the message can impose its cultural state to the system, that is, the system reaches an ordered, homogeneous state equal to the cultural state of the message. However, if the intensity of the transmitted message is above the threshold value, the system reaches a disordered state characterized by the presence of many different cultural groups. These states are described in the space of parameters of the system, consisting of the intensity of the message or mass media influence and the number of available cultural options.