Approaches to Development

Communication
 Diffusion of Innovation
• Diffusion of innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at
what rate new ideas and technology spread.
• Everett Rogers, a professor of communication studies, popularized the
theory in his book Diffusion of Innovations; the book was first published in
1962, at present its fifth edition (2003) is available in the market.
• Rogers argues that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is
communicated over time among the participants in a social system.
• 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.
Key Elements of Diffusion Research
 Diffusion Process
• Diffusion occurs through a five–step decision-making process.
• Ryan and Gross first identified adoption as a process in 1943: Rogers' five
stages (steps): awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption
• In later editions of Diffusion of Innovation, Rogers changes his terminology
of the five stages to:
 3 imp stages in DOI
• Reorientation (change the direction)- the basic product, service, idea
already exist but it needs reorientation bcoz of changed innovative
elements introduced. The changed elements may totally or
partially change the product, service or idea
• Refocus- the reorientation necessitates refocussing of the
individuals/ community on the innovations. At this stage, they will
compare the innovative product with the old similar products and
discuss pros and cons which at later stage help them in making
decisions abt innovations
• Reinforce- the innovative ideas have to be reinforced by both
intensive and extensive media and interpersonal campaigns
Intensive- concentrated on a single subject or into short time; very thorough or vigorous
Extensive- covering or affecting a large area
The resultant consequences of diffusion can be direct/ indirect, latent/ manifest and
functional/ dysfunctional
Latent- lying dormant or hidden until circumstances are suitable for development
Manifest- clear or obvious
 Adopter Categories
1) Innovators:
– willing to take risks
– have the highest social status
– have financial liquidity
– are social and have closest contact to scientific
sources and interaction with other innovators
– Their risk tolerance allows them to adopt
technologies that may ultimately fail
– Financial resources help absorb these failures.
2) Early adopters:
- have the highest degree of opinion leadership among the
adopter categories.
- Early adopters have a higher social status
- financial liquidity
- advanced education and are more socially forward than
late adopters
- They are more discreet (careful) in adoption choices than
innovators.
- They use judicious choice of adoption to help them
maintain a central communication position.
3) Early Majority :
– They adopt an innovation after a varying degree of
time that is significantly longer than the
innovators and early adopters.
– Early Majority have above average social status,
contact with early adopters and seldom hold
positions of opinion leadership in a system
4) Late Majority:
- They adopt an innovation after the average participant.
- These individuals approach an innovation with a high
degree of skepticism and after the majority of society
has adopted the innovation.
- Late Majority are typically skeptical about an innovation
- have below average social status
- little financial liquidity
- in contact with others in late majority and early majority
and little opinion leadership.
5) Laggards:
– They are the last to adopt an innovation.
– Unlike some of the previous categories, individuals in this
category show little to no opinion leadership.
– These individuals typically have an aversion to change-
agents.
– Laggards typically tend to be focused on "traditions",
lowest social status
– lowest financial liquidity
– oldest among adopters
– and in contact with only family and close friends.
 Example
• ATM cards spread relatively quickly. Since the cards were used in public, others who
did not yet hold the cards could see how convenient they were. Although some
people were concerned about security, the convenience factors seemed to be a
decisive factor in the “tug-of-war” for and against adoption.
• The case of credit cards was a bit more complicated and involved a “chicken-and-
egg” paradox. Accepting credit cards was not a particularly attractive option for
retailers until they were carried by a large enough number of consumers.
Consumers, in contrast, were not particularly interested in cards that were not
accepted by a large number of retailers. Thus, it was necessary to “jump start” the
process, signing up large corporate accounts, under favorable terms, early in the
cycle, after which the cards became worthwhile for retailers to accept.
• Rap music initially spread quickly among urban youths in large part because of the
low costs of recording. Later, rap music became popular among a very different
segment, suburban youths, because of its apparently authentic depiction of an
exotic urban lifestyle.
• E governance or E- system in hospitals, schools, etc.
 Magic Multiplier
• Mass Media is called the magic multiplier as it can multiply
the messages and reach a number of people very fast.
Wilbur Schramm (1964), in his book Mass Media and
National Development, argued that each person would
have requirement of information of the work he would
undertake. And there be millions of workers would require
information of various types. The conventional channel of
communication would never be able to meet this demand.
Therefore, modern communication technologies would be
of great use to meet this demand by multiplying the
messages and reaching each and every worker
simultaneously.
We need magic multiplier for the following reasons: -For social
change of great magnitude, people must be informed,
educated, motivated and persuaded. Information must flow,
not only to them but also from them, so that their needs
can be known and they might participate in the acts and
decisions of the nation- building. As the required amount of
information and learning is vast and so as the targeted
population. The available channels of communication like
inter-personal, group- communication, traditional media are
incapable to undertake this task. As this will require a lot of
time and resources. For a developing country, it's difficult to
gather a large pool of resources and wait for such a long
period. Mass media with its magical reach can do this job in
less time and resources.
 Empathy
• The power of identifying oneself mentally with a person or object of choice—is
what empathy means literally. Daniel Lerner used this term with a particular
emphasis on the aspirations for a new identity.
Importance of Empathy
• Lerner identified development with modernization and social change. The four
indices of development were urbanization, literacy, media exposure and
political participation. According to Lerner people need to have mobile
personality (ability to undertake new tasks and experience), be empathetic
and participate in the process of development to develop.
• When people are mobile, they are ready to look for something new and the
empathy makes them search for something new. Mobility and empathy make
them more change prone. Participation, both political and social leads to
development. Participation has to be at several layers of society and eventually
at all levels of society.

Lerner suggested that media exposure, political participation and developing