Influence diffusion detection using the influence style (INFUSE) model

Blogs are readily available sources of opinions and sentiments that in turn could influence the opinions of the blog readers. Previous studies have attempted to infer influence from blog features, but they have ignored the possible influence styles that describe the different ways in which influence is exerted. We propose a novel approach to analyzing bloggers' influence styles and using the influence styles as features to improve the performance of influence diffusion detection among linked bloggers. The proposed influence style (INFUSE) model describes bloggers' influence through their engagement style, persuasion style, and persona. Methods used include similarity analysis to detect the creating-sharing aspect of engagement style, subjectivity analysis to measure persuasion style, and sentiment analysis to identify persona style. We further extend the INFUSE model to detect influence diffusion among linked bloggers based on the bloggers' influence styles. The INFUSE model performed well with an average F1 score of 76% compared with the in-degree and sentiment-value baseline approaches. Previous studies have focused on the existence of influence among linked bloggers in detecting influence diffusion, but our INFUSE model is shown to provide a fine-grained description of the manner in which influence is diffused based on the bloggers' influence styles.