Diffusion
of innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how,
why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through culture. Everett
Rogers a professor of communication studies popularized the theory in his book (Diffusion of Innovations); the book was
first published in 1962. Rogers argues that diffusion is the process by which
an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the
participants in a social system. The origins of the diffusion of innovations
theory are varied and span multiple disciplines. Rogers proposes that four main
elements influence the spread of a new idea: the innovation itself,
communication channels, time, and a social system. This process relies heavily
on human capital. The innovation must be widely adopted in order to
self-sustain. Within the rate of adoption, there is a point at which an
innovation reaches critical mass. The categories of adopters are: innovators, early
adopter’s, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Diffusion manifests
itself in different ways in various cultures and fields and is highly subject
to the type of adopters and innovation-decision process
The
central idea of this theory is that diffusion as part of a social system, adopt
a new idea, behavior or product. Rogers expounded these elements as- innovation
is an idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by an individual or
other unit of adoption, communication channels- being the means by which
messages get from one individual to another; time- rate of adoption is the
relative speed with which an innovation is adopted by members of a social
system; social system- a set of interrelated units that are engaged in joint
problem solving to accomplish a common goal.
LIMITATIONS
There
are several limitations of diffusion of innovation theory, which include the
following;
·
Much of the evidence for this theory,
including the adopter categories did not originate in public health and it was
not developed to explicitly apply to adoption of new behaviors or health
innovations.
·
It does not foster a participatory approach
to adoption of a public health program.
·
It works better with adoption of behaviors
rather than cessation or prevention of behaviors.
·
It doesn’t take into account an
individual’s resources or social support to adopt the new behavior (or
innovation)
This
theory has been used successfully in many fields including communication,
agriculture, public health, criminal justice, social work and marketing. In
public health, diffusion of innovation theory is used to accelerate the
adoption of important public health programes that typically aim to change the
behavior of a social system. For example, an intervention to address a public
health problem is developed and the intervention is promoted to people in a
social system with the goal of adoption. The most successful adoption of a
public health results from understanding the target population and the factors
influencing their rate of adoption. Rogers also identifies six main traditions
that impacted diffusion research; anthropology, early sociology, education,
industrial sociology and medical sociology.
REFERENCE.
- Canadian journal
- Rogers, Everett M (1962). Diffusion of Innovations. Glencoe: Free Press. ISBN 0-612-62843-4.
- Rogers, Everett M. (1983). Diffusion of Innovations. New York: Free Press. ISBN 978-0-02-926650-2.
