Foreword

In this current time of social and political upheaval, with the added challenge of a raging pandemic, this book, Information Spread in a Social Media Age: Modeling and Control, is both timely and appropriate from an engineering, scientific, and policy point of view. On a global scale, society is experiencing an unprecedented period of tremendous technical growth, leading to a never before seen and increasingly high level of connectivity between people and groups. While the global nature of a networked society has some great advantages, there are also some severe challenges. Misinformation and disinformation can be easily spread through our cyber-social networks creating dangerous consequences for humanity. Hence, it is imperative for the survival and prosperity of society that we understand the mechanics of this new networked structure to keep its benefits while eliminating and controlling any deleterious aspects. This book addresses this very specific topic in a seamless way covering not only the modeling aspect of the structure and dynamics of the networked systems but also control design, which relates to public policy and management issues.

The best part of the book is the way in which it presents the social and network theory, followed by various models of information spread, and then finally mechanisms for control design for the management of the dynamics of the system. The book is written in a gentle tone, making it easy to comprehend not only the models and control designs, but also the reasoning behind each choice that the modeler or a policy maker might make. The level of exposition included makes it easily accessible for readers from disparate backgrounds, such as social sciences, engineering, public policy, etc. The book also comes with detailed software code that shows simulations of the models and the performance of control designs. The reader can easily understand the software code and put it to use for their own purposes.

The book comes from a place of academic strength that relies on original research work performed by the authors of this book on this topic. Moreover, the book is presented in a way that makes it usable as a tool to learn modeling and control design basics and to code those models using software while keeping the main topic of social media networks and information spread maintained as examples.

The book can be fruitfully enjoyed by beginners in their respective fields. However, the book also provides a very serious look at cutting edge research in these topics and prepares readers to engage in these subjects themselves. The models and control design techniques can be modified to tackle other similar problems not only in social networks and information spread but other areas as such as studying the impact of COVID-19 and designing effective strategies for tackling it in a methodical way.