COM546 : Frameworks and Theories: Diffusion

and Adoption

Kathy E. Gill

27 January 2009

Theories (recap) (1/2)

Scientific Humanistic

Why: Discover the “truth”

Create meaning

Values: Objectivity “Emancipation”

Purpose: Determine universal laws

Provide rules for interpretation

Theories (recap) (2/2)

Scientific Humanistic

Research Methods:

Quantitative: experiment, survey

Qualitative: ethnography, textual analysis

Judged by: Explains data Predicts future Testable hypothesis Practicality

Explains human behavior Clarifies values Consensus Ability to reform society

Two Theories of Mediated

Communication• Shannon-Weaver

• “Transmission model” or “hypodermic model

• Osgood & Schramm• “Circular model” that stresses the social nature of communication

Thinking About Rogers

and Christensen

…

Linear innovation-diffusion theory

The process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the

members of a social system.

Rogers, 1995, page 5

Elements

• Innovation

• Social system

• Time

• Communications channels

Innovation

• An idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption

Communication

• A process in which participants create and share information with one another in order to reach mutual understanding

Time

• Source

Infographic credited to NYT

Social System

• A set of interrelated units that are engaged in joint problem-solving to accomplish a common goal.

• Members or units of a social system may be individuals, informal groups, organizations, and/or subsystems.

Innovation-Decision Process

• The mental process through which an individual passes : from knowledge to forming an attitude toward the innovation (adopt, reject)

Rogers: Five steps of adoption

• Knowledge

• Persuasion

• Decision (adopt or reject)

• Implementation

• Confirmation

Critical Mass

• Rogers (1995) : "the critical mass occurs at the point at which enough individuals have adopted an innovation so that the innovation's further rate of adoption becomes self-sustaining.”

Adopter categories

• Innovators

• Early adopters

• Early majority

• Late majority

• Laggards

Forecast: US Household Technology Adoption, 2005-2010Forrester Reports. July 2005, Data Overview “The State Of Consumers And Technology: Benchmark 2005”

The Five-Year Forecast: Household Devices, AccessJuly 2008 “Benchmark 2008: Forecast Growth Of Devices And Access In The US”

The Five-Year Forecast: Personal DevicesJuly 2008 “Benchmark 2008: Forecast Growth Of Devices And Access In The US”

More than 55% of households will have a DVR by 2011?

Source: Forrester’s North American Consumer Technology Adoption Study 2006 Benchmark Survey

Technological Innovations

• Hardware - the tool that embodies the technology as a material or physical object.

• Software - the knowledge base for the tool

For additional thought …

• Increasing capacity w/out adding wires (telegraph). Parallels today?

• Grey v Bell …. Jobs v Gates? …. ? v Google?

• What is today’s “railroad” sector?

• Price models: Bell’s renting the phone, IBM’s renting the mainframe, cellphone contracts … what do they have in common?

Thinking About Rogers and

Christensen … we’ll talk about

disruptive technologies

Credits

• Presentation by Kathy E. Gill, kegill@u.washington.edu, @kegill CC share-and-share alike, non-commercial use

• “S-curve” from http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/cm/cm05/overview05/keycomms/