Diffusion of innovations

Diffusion of innovations is the theory that seeks to explain how, why, in addition to at what rate new ideas and technology spread. Everett Rogers, a professor of communication studies, popularized the notion in his book Diffusion of Innovations; the book was number one published in 1962, and is now in its fifth edition 2003. Rogers argues that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated over time among the participants in a social system. The origins of the diffusion of innovations conception are varied and span business disciplines.

Rogers proposes that five main elements influence the spread of a new idea: the innovation itself, adopters, communication channels, time, and a social system. This process relies heavily on social capital. The innovation must be widely adopted in outline to self-sustain. Within the rate of adoption, there is a unit at which an innovation reaches critical mass. In the 1991 book "crossing the chasm", Geoffrey Moore theorizes that this module lies at the boundary between the early adopters and the early majority. This tipping point between niche appeal and mass self-sustained adoption is simply known as "the chasm".

The categories of adopters are innovators, early adopters, early majority, unhurried majority, and laggards. Diffusion manifests itself in different ways and is highly referenced to the type of adopters and innovation-decision process. The criterion for the adopter categorization is innovativeness, defined as the degree to which an individual adopts a new idea.

Heterophily and communication channels

Lazarsfeld and Merton first called attention to the principles of homophily and its opposite, heterophily. Using their definition, Rogers defines homophily as "the measure to which pairs of individuals who interact are similar inattributes, such as beliefs, education, social status, and the like". When assumption the choice, individuals ordinarily choose to interact with someone similar to themselves. Homophilous individuals engage in more powerful communication because their similarities lead to greater knowledge gain as living as attitude or behavior change. As a result, homophilous people tend to promote diffusion among each other. However, diffusion requires adegree of heterophily to introduce new ideas into a relationship; if two individuals are identical, no diffusion occurs because there is no new information to exchange. Therefore, an ideal situation would involve potential adopters who are homophilous in every way, except in cognition of the innovation.

Promotion of healthy behavior allows an example of the balance so-called of homophily and heterophily. People tend to beto others of similar health status. As a result, people with unhealthy behaviors like smoking and obesity are less likely to encounter information and behaviors that encourage good health. This proposed a critical challenge for health communications, as ties between heterophilous people are relatively weaker, harder to create, and harder to maintain. developing heterophilous ties to unhealthy communities can increase the effectiveness of the diffusion of proceeds health behaviors. one time one ago homophilous tie adopts the behavior or innovation, the other members of that group are more likely to undertake it, too.