A generating-function approach to modelling complex contagion on clustered networks with multi-type branching processes

Understanding cascading processes on complex network topologies is paramount for modelling how diseases, information, fake news and other media spread. In this article, we extend the multi-type branching process method developed in Keating et al., (2022), which relies on networks having homogenous node properties, to a more general class of clustered networks. Using a model of socially inspired complex contagion we obtain results, not just for the average behaviour of the cascades but for full distributions of the cascade properties. We introduce a new method for the inversion of probability generating functions to recover their underlying probability distributions; this derivation naturally extends to higher dimensions. This inversion technique is used along with the multi-type branching process to obtain univariate and bivariate distributions of cascade properties. Finally, using clique-cover methods, we apply the methodology to synthetic and real-world networks and compare the theoretical distribution of cascade sizes with the results of extensive numerical simulations.