Microblog-oriented backbone nodes identification in public opinion diffusion

Backbone nodes in public opinion diffusion could help people understand how it spreads. Previous work relies on the fact that how the opinion diffuses across time, which shows disappointing results. This paper presents a novel method for identifying backbone nodes in public opinion diffusion, which can be applied to different platforms. We take Sina microblog as an example platform. Besides traditional factors, our model takes personal contribution degree and physical contribution degree into consideration by estimating personal features and diffusion scale respectively. Finally, we employ a visual graph to a person´s role in public opinion diffusion intuitively. Experimental result shows that this method performs well in identifying backbone nodes.