Research On Influencing-Subject Game And Control Strategies For Social Media Information Quality

With the development of information technology and the expansion of interaction and communication, social media as resource integrating platforms for information and knowledge sharing, are widespread concerned and worshiped to set off revolutions in fields of technology, economy, education, politics, etc. Social media have made a positive impact on social and economic development because of user scale, wide spread and range. Social media bring the convenience of information release, delivery and acceptance, as well as lots of information quality problems, such as hyping and distorting user generated content, spreading false, vulgar and useless information, disclosing privacy, etc, which have caused a lot of problems in network insecurity and crime, and make challenges for managing social media information quality. Deteriorating information quality in social media is bound to dilute and erode the credibility of social media, to affect user satisfaction, to damage Internet environment, which is not conducive to keep network environment clear, clean and civilized. What’s more, information explosion and disorder in social media aggravate the difficulty of controling information quality. Therefore, problems in managing and controling social media information quality are urgent to be solved in the process of social media development.Based on theories of cybernetics, information ecology, psychology, statistics, this study focuses on social media information quality and analyzes current management situation, the influence mechanism, games between subjects and strategy choices for influencing subjects by using methods of induction and deduction, evolutionary game, system dynamics. The main research includes:(1) after clarifying domestic and foreign researches on social media, social media information, social media information quality and related theories, define core concepts in this study and distinguish traditional information quality from social media information quality;(2) analyze the present situation of social media information quality and management by using data from China Internet Illegal and Harmful Information Reporting Center, and reveal the problems existing in social media information quality control;(3) analyze the influencing subjects and factors of social media information quality, and show how social media platforms, users and government administrative departments affect information quality;(4) use evolutionary game theory to establish models between government administrative departments, social media platforms and users based on their interactive behaviors, simulating in Matlab, then respectively explore the evolutionary process of the game players’ behaviors and influence on information quality, and dissect the reasons of inferior information in a deeper sense;(5) build a flowing model of social media information quality control by combining system dynamics and evolutionary game theory, study government administrative departments’, social media platforms’ and users’ behavioral evolutions in an integrated system by using Vensim PLE to simulate the flowing model, and find the optimal solutions for managing social media information quality;(6) suggest strategies for social media information quality control from macro, intermediate and micro perspectives respectively.Study conclusions:(1) social media information quality is mainly influenced by subjects like government administrative departments, social media platforms and users, changes of parameters such as reward obtained by users providing premium information(W), loss suffered by users providing inferior information(F), probability of inferior information mistakenly understood(k), are sensitive to the behavioral subjects’ strategies in social media information quality control system, so adjusting these parameters can improve information quality;(2) in the evolutionary games of government administrative departments, social media platforms and users, any subject’s increasing cost is not conducive to the benign evolution, so reasonable cost control can optimize the quality of social media information;(3) within a certain range, reward obtained by users providing premium information(W), loss suffered by users providing inferior information(F), punishment received by social media platforms(G1) and by users(G2) enable the system to evolute benignly, which demonstrates that the system of reward and punishment and the supervision mechanism benefit social media information quality;(4) government playing a leading role in controling social media information quality, determines the level of regulation, and guides to form a self-discipline mechanism in social media to promote virtuous development of social media platforms and government administrative departments;(5) improvement in users’ information literacy and benign interactions among government administrative departments, social media platforms and users can promote social media information quality. In a word, cooperative managing mechanism of social media information quality should be constructed in the perspective of social media platforms, users and government administrative departments, and laws and regulations should be conducted to guarantee the benign interactions, which can finally improve information quality.Innovative ideas include:(1) information quality is concerned in social media environment, and influencing subjects and factors are analyzed for social media information quality, which enrich and develop research theories, uncover the influencing mechanism and break the limitations in former researches that mainly concentrate on information itself or on users;(2) evolutionary games are played between government administrative departments, social media platforms and users to reveal the causes of inferior information, and at the same time, by combining system dynamics and evolutionary game theory, government administrative departments, social media platforms and users are wedged into in a research framework to build a flowing model for social media information quality control, which advance depth and precision of social media information quality research;(3) system dynamic simulation is used to obtain the optimal solutions for managing social media information quality, to analyze the influence factors making on social media information quality and on strategy choices for government administrative departments, social media platforms and users, which provide reference for suggesting forward-looking and operational strategies in controling information quality from macro, intermediate and micro perspectives respectively.