Managing public opinion in consensus-reaching processes for large-scale group decision-making problems

Abstract

In a public-related decision-making event, some people whose interests are not consistent with the result of the event may post some false information on social media to guide others against the event. Without proper management, the public’s opposition may lead to the failure of the events, even causing social unrest and economic losses. In order to reduce the impact of false information on the evolution of people’s opinions, this paper develops two opinion dynamics models to investigate the evolution process of opinions of decision makers and other related people on social media. Then, in order to manage the public opinion formed by all related people’s opinions and ensure a smooth implementation of the result of these events in real life, a public opinion management-based consensus reaching process is proposed. Meanwhile, to improve the efficiency of management measures, people are divided into two categories based on their confidence levels. Eventually, an illustrative example and simulations are provided to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model for managing public opinion.

Keywords:

• Decision support systems
• opinion dynamics
• large-scale group decision-making
• consensus-reaching process

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 72001025 and 71772136), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2020M680017), the introduction project of China Postdoctoral international exchange program (Grant No. YJ20200266), the Strategic Research Grants of the City University of Hong Kong (Grant Nos. 7005193 and 7005380), and the Beijing Institute of Technology Research Fund Program for Young Scholars.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The public opinion of a decision-making event refers to the aggregation of opinions of people including DMs, stakeholders, and others who have expressed opinions towards the event.

2 The consensus refers to the extent to which all DMs reach an agreement on a decision-making event.

3 The false information refers to biased opinions or opinions which present objection too forcefully.

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 72001025 and 71772136), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2020M680017), the introduction project of China Postdoctoral international exchange program (Grant No. YJ20200266), the Strategic Research Grants of the City University of Hong Kong (Grant Nos. 7005193 and 7005380), and the Beijing Institute of Technology Research Fund Program for Young Scholars.