Rumor propagation on networks with community structure

In this paper, based on growth and preferential attachment mechanism, we give a network generation model aiming at generating networks with community structure. There are three characteristics for the networks generated by the generation model. The first is that the community sizes can be nonuniform. The second is that there are bridge hubs in each community. The third is that the strength of community structure is adjustable. Next, we investigate rumor propagation behavior on the generated networks by performing Monte Carlo simulations to reveal the influence of bridge hubs, nonuniformity of community sizes and the strength of community structure on the dynamic behavior of the rumor propagation. We find that bridge hubs have outstanding performance in propagation speed and propagation size, and larger modularity can reduce rumor propagation. Furthermore, when the decay rate of rumor spreading β is large, the final density of the stiflers is larger if the rumor originates in larger community. Additionally, when on networks with different strengths of community structure, rumor propagation exhibits greater difference in the density of stiflers and in the peak prevalence if the decay rate β is larger.