A Shapley Value-based Approach to Determine Gatekeepers in Social Networks with Applications

Inspired by emerging applications of social networks, we introduce in this paper a new centrality measure termed gatekeeper centrality. The new centrality is based on the well-known game-theoretic concept of Shapley value and, as we demonstrate, possesses unique qualities compared to the existing metrics. Furthermore, we present a dedicated approximate algorithm, based on the Monte Carlo sampling method, to compute the gatekeeper centrality. We also consider two well known applications in social network analysis, namely community detection and limiting the spread of mis-information; and show the merit of using the proposed framework to solve these two problems in comparison with the respective benchmark algorithms.

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