Continuous and discontinuous opinion dynamics with bounded confidence

In this paper, we study a continuous-time version of the Hegselmann-Krause opinion dynamics, which models bounded confidence by a discontinuous interaction. Intending solutions in the sense of Krasovskii, we provide results of existence, completeness and convergence to clusters of agents sharing a common opinion. For a deeper understanding of the role of the mentioned discontinuity, we study a class of continuous approximating systems, and their convergence to the original one. Our results indicate that their qualitative behavior is similar, and we argue that discontinuity is not an essential feature in bounded confidence opinion dynamics. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.