Modeling the Contributions of Participator, Content, and Network to Topic Duration in Online Social Group

As a common phenomenon that often appears on social platforms, news sites, and community forums, topics have played an irreplaceable role in public opinion and social governance. Meanwhile, people’s daily lives are increasingly dependent on the breeding, transformation, and attenuation of hot topics. This article aims to discuss the problem about topic duration, that is, what are the principle factors that affect topic duration? Why do some topics survive longer and even generate subtopics, while other topics disappear rapidly? To answer these questions, we innovatively use 104 121 alliance chat content in
Nova Empire
II from July 2023 to December 2023 as a case study. Dynamic topics trajectories are first obtained from a novel multilevel association model. Then, a potential factors system based on the dimensions of topic properties, topic users, and social network is established to quantitatively evaluate the influence for different factors. Experimental results from a robust statistical analysis framework demonstrate that higher topic discussion intensity, more content from opinion leader, faster information diffusion, and closer intertopic correlations will significantly improve the topic duration. Finally, a series of strategies are proposed to promote the design of social system applications from the perspectives of online social group.