Modeling opinion dynamics of a set of interacting agents requires specifying the social network of interactions and the state (opinion) of the agents, represented as nodes of the network. The links of the network can also have a state, representing for instance attractive or repulsive interactions. In addition, the network might not be fixed, but adaptive with a time dependent topology in which agents can choose and change their neighbors. We introduce such a general dynamical model for binary opinions including the coupled dynamics of the states of the nodes, the states of the links and the topology of the network. We find a transition from a dynamical state of coexisting opinions to a consensus state showing network fragmentation at the transition line. Our results contribute to the description of processes of emergence of social fragmentation and polarization.

Trabajo presentado en el Workshop on Sociophysics: Social Phenomena from a Physics Perspective, celebrado online del 18 al 22 de octubre de 2021.