Self-Organized Scheme for the Microblogging Network Evolution: Formalism and Empirical Study

The adaptation of the theory of self-organized criticality to the study of the mechanisms of appearances of the corresponding critical phenomena in the microblogging social network is presented. The new mathematical model is proposed in the form of the nonlinear dynamical system with additive noises, binding the order parameter, the conjugate field and the control parameter. The analysis of model implementations is able to explain the mechanisms of the existence of the network in the subcritical and the self-organized critical states, consistent with the processes of forming the hierarchically organized user community observed in the social network, who consistently adhering to the certain strategy. As a result of analyzing the unique identifiers of Twitter (tweet ids), and considering the results and conclusions on the model’s implementations, it was possible to establish that the self-organized critical states could arise in the social network with the coordinated action of the relatively small number of users in such events, as political elections, protest movements and public behavior during natural disasters.