How Does a Minority Opinion Spread? - An Agent-Based Model on the Opposition Between a Silent Majority and a Loud Minority

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a discrete opinion model in which two beliefs models compete. One opinion is endorsed bythe vast majority of agents, but this majority remains silent and rarely expresses its opinion. Conversely, the other beliefmodel is supported by a small minority that is very committed and does not hesitate to be loud. We observe that a very smallnumber of individuals is necessary for the minority opinion to become the majority. However, the presence of so-called ”inflexible” and ”super propagators” agents can counteract this phenomenon and prevent the loud minority from propagatingits view.