How we change what others think, feel, believe and do

Diffusion

Disciplines > Communication > Diffusion

How do ideas spread? How does one person convince another and that person spread the word? Diffusion of ideas can be critically important for mass persuasion and is consequently of interest to marketers, politicians and more.

• Diffusion Curve: From innovators to laggards.

  • Innovators: Explore what's new.

  • Early Adopters: Seek the leading edge.

  • Early Majority: Prefer the market leader.

  • Late Majority: Want 'cheap and easy'.

  • Laggards: Avoid innovations and resist change.

• Bandwagon Effect: People wanting to join in.
• Blogs and Diffusion: How ideas spread through blogs.
• Critical Mass: How big before things take off?
• Cohesion and Coupling: How ideas spread in and between groups.
• Contact Frequency: How many times before deciding?
• Diffusion and Surprise: Surprise increase diffusion.
• Diffusion Gaps: In knowledge and motivation.
• Earlier Adopters: Those who adopt before others.
• Early Knowers: People with their ear to the ground.
• Epidemiology and Diffusion: Diseases spread like ideas.
• Four Components of Diffusion: Innovation, channel, time, social system.
• Idea Bait: Fishing for new brains to infect.
• Idea Immunization: Vaccination against competing ideas.
• Ideas That Spread: Characteristics of diffusable ideas.
• Memes: Basic items that are diffused.
• Internal Diffusion Process: How ideas are adopted.
• Seven Modes of Memetic Transmission: Ways of spreading ideas.
• Synchrony: How people spontaneously act together.
• The Vowel Pattern: Critical factors in diffusing ideas.

The idea of diffusion originated in 19th century European studies of cultural change, for example as summarized in Durkheim's (1897) summary of research into suicide epidemics.

In the 20th century the fascination of how people connect and spread ideas continued. For example Tarde (1903) described imitation, Pemberton (1936) further described the spread of ideas and Rogers (1962) brought the principle to wider attention, defining diffusion as:

"the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system"

In 1935 Zipf coined the term 'acteme', which was revised to 'meme' by Dawkins (1976).

See also

Groups, Theories about groups, Small World Theory, Weak Ties Theory, Culture, Simplicity Principle, Mainstreaming, How to make a video go viral

http://creatingminds.org

Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Durkheim, E. (1897, 1952). Suicide: A Study in Sociology, Routledge, London

Pemberton, H. E. (1936) 'The Curve of Culture Diffusion Rate', American Sociological Review, 1 (4): 547-556

Rogers, E.M. (1962). Diffusion of Innovations. Glencoe: Free Press

Tarde, G. (1903, 1963). The Laws of Imitation, Peter Smith, Clouchester, MA.

Zipf, G. K. (1935, 1965). Psychobiology of Languages, The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, MA.