Quantification of Topic Propagation Using Percolation Theory: A Study of the ICWSM Network

This paper utilises the mathematical framework of percolation theory to model the spread of information  in a blog network.  The motivating claim is that when the probability of a blog topic being communicated to another blog reaches a certain critical threshold, the entire network becomes saturated with the topic for a period of time.  The paper's empirical conclusions are less interesting than the methodology used, which supplements context-based explanation for the spread of a topic with an understanding of the formal dynamics of information spread common to all networks.

http://www.aaai.org/Papers/Workshops/2009/WS-09-01/WS09-01-001.pdf