A New Model for Growing Social Networks

In this paper, a new model of real social networks is introduced. The main characteristic of the model is an attachment mechanism based on the existence of network communities, a key feature of real social networks. Using numerical simulations, we show how this model shares with these networks several peculiarities (such as high levels of clustering, low values of the characteristic path length and node betweenness, division into communities and heterogeneous degree distribution), not captured in other network models.