How do new ideas and technologies spread through society?

Diffusion of innovations is a theory explaining how new ideas, practices, and technologies spread through a social system over time. Popularized by Everett Rogers in his 1962 book, it outlines five main elements: the innovation, adopters, communication channels, time, and the social system. The theory categorizes adopters by their innovativeness, helping explain how products or concepts eventually achieve critical mass.

What we know

• The diffusion of innovations theory was popularized by Everett Rogers in his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations. [2, 3]
• Rogers synthesized research from over 508 diffusion studies across disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, education, and medicine. [3]
• The five main elements influencing the spread of a new idea are the innovation itself, adopters, communication channels, time, and a social system. [2]
• Adopter categories are classified based on innovativeness into innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. [2]

Where to go next

• whoWho was Everett Rogers?
• the bigger pictureWhat is the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology?
• how it workedHow do communication channels affect the rate of adoption?
• a case in pointWhat is the marketing chasm between early adopters and the early majority?
• how we knowHow did early sociological studies shape modern communication theory?
• an unexpected connectionHow did agricultural and medical sociology build modern tech acceptance models?Rogers synthesized rural and medical sociology studies in 1962, which later directly informed the creation of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology for modern information systems.

Sources

• [1]diffusion of innovations (Wikidata Q304994) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Diffusion of innovations · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Diffusion of Innovations · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Everett Rogers · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology · CC BY-SA 4.0