Theories Of Diffusion Of Innovation

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The theory of the diffusion of innovation studies how the social members adopt new and innovative ideas and how they make decisions based upon it. Basically, diffusion is a special type of communication where the messages are about an innovative idea. What gives diffusion its special character is the newness of the idea, which guarantees that a degree of indecision is involved in the diffusion process. From his studies, Rogers proposed four elements of diffusion of innovations which are Innovations, Communication Channel, Time and Social System. The communication channels are used to send messages from one individual to another and distribute innovation to the masses. It is able to take any form like word of mouth, SMS and any sort of literary…show more content…
On the other hand, interpersonal channels involve face-to-face communication between two or more individuals. For this reason, an individual is more prone to adopt a new idea or change a strongly held attitude rather than using a mass media channel, especially if the interpersonal channel links two or more individuals who are near-peers. The more homophilous two individuals are the more frequent and more successful the transfer of ideas is between them. Unfortunately, the majority of participants are mostly quite heterophilous, resulting in ineffective communication. The innovation-decision process is a unique process whereby the individual goes from first learning about an innovation, to being able to form an opinion about it, to ultimately adopting or rejecting that idea. This whole process can be broken down into five separate stages, which are Knowledge, Persuasion, Decision, Implementation and…show more content…
While an innovator is the one who introduces the idea to the system, it is the early adopters that make use of that idea, resulting in potential adopters turning to them for advice and information before using a new innovation. The majority of the early adopters had heard of Kennedy’s death by means of mass media, whereas the majority of the late adopters learned through interpersonal channels. The research made by Bowers (1938) showed that early adopters made more use of mass media channels than late adopters. Therefore the role of the early adopter is to reduce indecision about a certain idea by adopting it, and then giving out an opinion about the innovation through interpersonal channels to

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