A Meta-Modeling Framework for a Specific Social Domain: Public Opinion Event

Zongchen Fan1, Xiaogang Qiu1, Weihui Dai2, Yuanzheng Ge3, Liang Liu1 and Yunsuo Duan4

  1. College of Information Systems and Management, National University of Defense Technology
    410073 Changsha, China
    {van_andy, qiuxg_nudt, nudt_ll}@163.com
  2. School of Management, Fudan University
    200433 Shanghai, China
    whdai@fudan.edu.cn
  3. Information Countermeasure Department, Aviation University of PLA Air Force
    130000 Changchun, China
    ge.yuanzheng.nudt@gmail.com
  4. Psychiatry Department, Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute
    10032New York City, NY, United States
    yd2154@columbia.edu

Abstract

Due to the extensive social influence in modern information communication environment, public opinion event has caused significant attention in emergency management by the government. The formation and evolution of public opinion event is a dynamically interactive process affected by the participant’s complicated psychology and behaviors. Agent-based modeling method can provide an effective and powerful tool to investigate the emerging phenomena in a social simulation system. Although many methodologies have been presented to support the standardized modeling, but the transition from expertise or theory model to computing simulation model is still a hard work for the sociologist, who usually lack of the required technological skills. In order to step over this barrier, we propose a domain-expert oriented methodology to guide the modeling process in a specific social domain, and design a meta-modeling framework based on the paradigm of Agent-Event-Environment (AEE) which can be considered as a basis of developing a visual modeling environment or tools. By the application in the real case of a major public opinion event, the proposed method has been verified effectively and efficiently. Research work of this article provides a valuable framework and methodology to deal with the transition of expertise or theoretical knowledge into computing simulation for a specific social domain.

Key words

agent-based modeling and simulation, methodology, meta-modeling framework, public opinion

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.2298/CSIS140927024F

Publication information

Volume 12, Issue 2 (June 2015)
Year of Publication: 2015
ISSN: 2406-1018 (Online)
Publisher: ComSIS Consortium

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How to cite

Fan, Z., Qiu, X., Dai, W., Ge, Y., Liu, L., Duan, Y.: A Meta-Modeling Framework for a Specific Social Domain: Public Opinion Event. Computer Science and Information Systems, Vol. 12, No. 2, 743–763. (2015), https://doi.org/10.2298/CSIS140927024F