Speaker:

Cristián Huepe, CHuepe Labs & Northwestern University

Title:

Echo Chambers and Post-Truth from a Complex Systems Perspective

Abstract:

The recent emergence of echo chambers and post-truth can be understood through the quantitative study of collective opinion-formation dynamics on social networks. I will present a minimal complex adaptive network model that explains why both phenomena appear to be increasingly common in the internet era. Using numerical and analytical approaches, I will show that this model displays an absorbing state where the network splits into independent components, each with a different internal consensus, which correspond to the echo chambers that lead to post-truth. I will also discuss model extensions that can capture more subtle opinion dynamics and describe our recent analyses of Twitter data, aimed at validating and further developing our theoretical results.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Cristián Huepe is a theoretical physicist conducting research in complex systems, nonequilibrium dynamics and quantitative social sciences. His current work focuses on collective motion, active matter, complex networks, the art/science interface, and opinion formation. His recent studies on the underlying systemic causes of the post-truth phenomenon have received widespread attention from academia, business and the press.

Dr. Huepe obtained his PhD in Physics at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, after completing undergraduate studies in his native Chile. He was then a postdoctoral scholar in Chicago, first at the University of Chicago and later at Northwestern University. Since 2006, Dr. Huepe has worked as an unaffiliated scientist and head of CHuepe Labs Inc., developing multiple research grant projects, contracts, and collaborations around the world. He is currently an adjunct professor at Northwestern University and external faculty member at the Northwestern Institute on Complex System in the USA, as well as an associate researcher at Beijing Normal University in China and at the SCL-SoL lab in Chile. His work has been featured in the international press and magazines such as Science Daily, Focus Online, National Geographic Germany and Wired Magazine, among others.

Live Stream:

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