DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION THEORY

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.