Diffusion of Innovation

"Technology confronts us with a double danger: Rejecting it without understanding it leads to oppression and accepting it without critical understanding leads to domination."

-- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"


The quote from Pirsig above suggests that we must both understand and use technology in order to effectively critique it. Questions we'll be asking in this class in our learning to both use, and critique, technology revolve around social disparities in health and how to address them. How do we understand the relationship between technology and social change? How do we explain the relationship between technology and the social determinants of health? To help answer these questions, we need to understand more about theories of technology and social change.

THEORIES OF TECHNOLOGY AND CHANGE

*Technological Determinism – see technology as inevitable & unstoppable. Some inventions 'take the world by storm' (archetype: the Sony Walkman).

*Social Constructivism - sees society as more powerful than technology. Which technology succeeds depends, in part, on who is powerful in society, and who it benefits. Other tech’l innovations seem to fail, lie dormant for decades, but when 'their time has come', their use grows quickly, even explosively (archetype: the fax machine).

*Diffusion of Innovations – most compelling, prevailing theory of technology and social change. A broad social psychological / sociological theory called Diffusion of Innovations (DoI) Theory purports to describe the patterns of adoption, explain the mechanism, and assist in predicting whether and how a new invention will be successful.

DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION (DoI)

Originator(s) and professional background:

* Gabriel Tarde (1900s): He was the main European forefather of the diffusion field. He was a French lawyer and judge by occupation. Even though he had no formal schooling, he was very innovative and ahead of his time. He observed certain generalizations about the diffusion of innovations that he called the laws of imitation, today it is called the adoption of an innovation.

* Bryce Ryan and Neal Gross (1950s-1960s): Neal Gross received his PhD in Sociology from Iowa State University in 1946. He was a researcher at Iowa State University from 1946-1948. He then took a faculty position at the University of Minnesota from 1948-51 before moving to Harvard University. Bruce Ryan was a graduate assistant for Neal Gross.

Circumstances or events that led to model/theory development:

Diffusion research did not develop from a single discipline or a single event. Different disciplines led to the development of this theory, the first discipline involved was Anthropology. Among the other research traditions that led to the expansion of this theory were: Early Sociology, Rural Sociology, Education, Public Health and Medical Sociology, Communication, Marketing and Management, Geography, General Sociology, General Economics, and other traditions.

Purpose of the theory (model):

The theory’s purpose is to provide individuals from any discipline interested in the diffusion of an innovation with a conceptual paradigm for understanding the process of diffusion and social change.


DoI Theory is concerned with the manner in which a new technological idea, artifact or technique, or a new use of an old one, migrates from creation to use. According to DoI theory, technological innovation is communicated through particular channels, over time, among the members of a social system.

The stages through which a technological innovation passes are:

* knowledge (exposure to its existence, and understanding of its functions);
* persuasion (the forming of a favourable attitude to it);
* decision (commitment to its adoption);
* implementation (putting it to use); and
* confirmation (reinforcement based on positive outcomes from it).

Early knowers generally are more highly educated, have higher social status, are more open to both mass media and interpersonal channels of communication, and have more contact with change agents. Mass media channels are relatively more important at the knowledge stage, whereas interpersonal channels are relatively more important at the persuasion stage.

Important characteristics of an innovation include:

* relative advantage (the degree to which it is perceived to be better than what it supersedes);
* compatibility (consistency with existing values, past experiences and needs);
* complexity (difficulty of understanding and use);
* trialability (the degree to which it can be experimented with on a limited basis);
* observability (the visibility of its results).

Different adopter categories are identified as:

* innovators (venturesome);
* early adopters (respectable);
* early majority (deliberate);
* late majority (sceptical);
* laggards (traditional).

Earlier adopting individuals tend not to be different in age, but to have more years of education, higher social status and upward social mobility, be in larger organizations, have greater empathy, less dogmatism, a greater ability to deal with abstractions, greater rationality, greater intelligence, a greater ability to cope with uncertainty and risk, higher aspirations, more contact with other people, greater exposure to both mass media and interpersonal communications channels and engage in more active information seeking.



Important roles in the innovation process include:

* opinion leaders (who have relatively frequent informal influence over the behaviour of others);
* change agents (who positively influence innovation decisions, by mediating between the change agency and the relevant social system);
* change aides (who complement the change agent, by having more intensive contact with clients, and who have less competence credibility but more safety or trustworthiness credibility).


The change agent functions are:

* to develop a need for change on the part of the client;
* to establish an information-exchange relationship;
* to diagnose the client problems;
* to create intent to change in the client;
* to translate this intent into action;
* to stabilise adoption and prevent discontinuance; and
* to shift the client from reliance on the change agent to self-reliance.


If you're interested in reading more about Diffusion of Innovations, here are some books on the subject:

Glanz, K., Lewis, F. M., Rimer, B. K., (Eds). (1997). Health behavior and health education theory, research, and practice. Second edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

This book does an excellent job of explaining the diffusion process. It explicitly states and describes the main constructs and key terms of the theory. Unlike many sociology and anthropology books where this theory can also be found, these authors provide several specific applications to the field of health education.

Rogers, Everett. (1995). Diffusion of innovations. Fourth edition. New York, NY: The Free Press.

The book presents a very thorough study and description of the model of Diffusion of Innovations. Many scholars consider this book to be the "bible" of the theory. It is a good source of information regarding all the different components of Diffusion of Innovations. In addition, the author, Rogers Everett, is a renown authority on this field of study.

Specifically, in commenting about this post, I want you to consider whether you are an early adopter, early majority, late majority, or a laggard, when it comes to adopting technology, and give a concrete example of why you say that.