Identifying Influential and Susceptible Members of Social Networks

• https://science.sciencemag.org/content/337/6092/337
• Sinan Aral and Dylan Walker

Given the existence of social contagion, can we identify those with more influence and those with more susceptibility?

The authors conducted a randomized experiment to measure influence and susceptibility.

The study uses an application that “lets users share information and opinions about movies, actors, directors, and the film industry”. Then, would the results be generalized to other types of products, ideas, and behaviors? Any systematic biases coming from network structure?