Online and offline social networks host a variety of dynamical processes, including opinion dynamics and the spread of new beliefs and behaviours. Several models are available to describe these processes: in general, global behaviours emerge from the interplay between the structure of the interconnection topology and the local agents’ interactions. Taking into account the type of process, few mechanisms can be used to steer the social network towards the desired behaviours.

In the talk, I briefly discuss three different models and three possible approaches. One possibility is to identify and control the most influential agents, i.e. those with the higher ability to drive the others towards the desired state. The second option is to distribute incentives that change agent's payoff in taking a specific choice, effectively nudging their choices. Finally, the last possibility is to modify the circulation of information by modulating the network topology.

Dr. Wilbert Samuel Rossi is a postdoctoral researcher in the Chair of Hybrid Systems at University of Twente (the Netherlands) since 2015. He holds a PhD in Mathematics in Engineering from Politecnico di Torino (Italy). In 2013 he was a visiting PhD student in the Department of Automatic Control, Lund University (Sweden). Wilbert's research interests include dynamics and control in networks, cascading processes, estimation of influence centrality measures and large-scale networks.