  Recent research has explored the increasingly important role of social media
by examining the dynamics of individual and group behavior, characterizing
patterns of information diffusion, and identifying influential individuals. In
this paper we suggest a measure of causal relationships between nodes based on
the information-theoretic notion of transfer entropy, or information transfer.
This theoretically grounded measure is based on dynamic information, captures
fine-grain notions of influence, and admits a natural, predictive
interpretation. Causal networks inferred by transfer entropy can differ
significantly from static friendship networks because most friendship links are
not useful for predicting future dynamics. We demonstrate through analysis of
synthetic and real-world data that transfer entropy reveals meaningful hidden
network structures. In addition to altering our notion of who is influential,
transfer entropy allows us to differentiate between weak influence over large
groups and strong influence over small groups.
