innovation of diffusion

1. Opinion Leadership, Diffusion
Networks and Change agent

2. Opinion Leadership
• Men are generally incredulous, never really
trusting new things unless they have tested
them by experience.
Niccolo Machiavelli
• Every herd of wild cattle has its leaders, its
influential heads.
Gabriel Tarde

3. Opinion leadership, the degree to which an
individual is able informally to influence other
individuals' attitudes or overt behavior in a
desired way with relative frequency
Opinion leaders are individuals who lead in
influencing others' opinions about innovations.
The behavior of opinion leaders is important in
determining the rate of adoption of an innovation
in a social system;
The diffusion curve has its usual s-shape because
of the time at which the opinion leaders adopt
and owing to their ability to activate diffusion
networks in a social system.

4. Content:
Various models of mass communication flow,
Homophily-heterophily
Measures of opinion leadership,
Characeristics of opinion leaders

5. Models of Mass Communication Flows
• Hypodermic Needle Model:
 The hypodermic needle model postulated that
the mass media had direct, immediate, and
powerful effects on a mass audience.
 The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s were
perceived as an all powerful influence on human
behavior.
 The omnipotent media were pictured as
conveying messages to atomized masses waiting
to receive them, with nothing intervening
(Katz and Lazarfeld, 1955, p. 16)

6. Considerable doubt was cast on the
hypodermic needle model
Based primarily on intuitive theorizing about
historical events and was too simple,
Too mechanistic, and
Too gross to give an accurate account of mass
media effects
Proposed The Two-Step Flow Model

7. The Two-Step Flow Model
• The first step, from sources to opinion leaders, is
mainly a transfer of information, whereas the second
step, from opinion leaders to their followers, also
involves the spread of influence.
• This two-step flow hypothesis has since been tested in
a variety of communication situations and found
generally to provide a usable conceptual framework for
examining the flow of mass communication
• One may be exposed to a new idea either through
mass media or interpersonal channels, and then
engage in communication exchanges about the
message with one's peers

8. • Mass-media channels are primarily knowledge creators,
whereas interpersonal networks are more important at
persuading individuals to adopt or reject.
• This notion was masked in the original statement of the
two-step model because the time sequence involved in
the decision- making process was ignored.
• Source/channel differences at the knowledge versus the
persuasion stages exist for both opinion leaders and
followers.
• The opinion leaders are not the only ones to use mass-
media channels, as the original statement of the two-step
flow model seemed to suggest
• Two intellectual benefits from the two-step flow
hypothesis are
(1) a focus upon opinion leadership, and
(2) several revisions of the two-step flow

9. Homophily Heterophily and
Flow of Communication
• Communication flows through interpersonal
networks can be enhanced by the concepts of
homophily and heterophily (Lazarsfeld and Merton ).
• The nature of who relays messages to whom is
brought out in such network analysis
• A fundamental principle of human communication is
that the transfer of ideas occurs most frequently
between individuals who are alike, or homophilous.
• Homophily is the degree to which pairs of individuals
who interact are similar in certain attributes, such as
beliefs, education, social status, and the like.

10. • Heterophilous communication may cause cognitive
dissonance because an individual is exposed to
messages that are inconsistent with existing
beliefs, causing an uncomfortable psychological
state.
• The more communication there is between
members of a dyad, the more likely they are to
become homophilous ;
• The more homophilous they are, the more likely it
is that their communication will be effective.
• Individuals who break the homophily boundary
and attempt to communicate with others who are
different from themselves face the frustration of
ineffective communication.

11. • Heterophilous communication has a special
informational potential, even though it may be
realized only rarely.
• Heterophilous network links often connect two
cliques, spanning two sets of socially dissimilar
individuals.
• Interpersonal links are especially important in
carrying information about innovations, as is
implied in Granovetter's theory of "the-strength-
of-weak-ties,"
• homophilous communication may be frequent
and easy but may not be so crucial as the less
frequent heterophilous communication in
diffusing innovations.

12. Homophily as a Barrier to
Diffusion:
• Homophily can act as an invisible barrier to the flow of
innovations within a system.
• New ideas usually enter a system through higher status
and more innovative members.
• A high degree of homophily means that these elite
individuals interact mainly with each other, and the
innovation does not "trickle down" to non-elites.
• Homophilous diffusion patterns cause new ideas to
spread horizontally, rather than vertically, within a
system.
• Homophily therefore acts to slow down the rate of
diffusion

13. Implication of homophily as a
barrier
• Change agents should work with different sets
of opinion leaders throughout the social
structure.
• If a system were characterized by extreme
heterophily, a change agent could concentrate
his or her efforts on only one or a few opinion
leaders near the top in social status and
innovativeness.

14. Generalizations
• Interpersonal diffusion networks are mostly
homophilous
• When interpersonal diffusion networks are
heterophilous, followers seek opinion leaders
a) of higher socioeconomic status
b) with more education
c) with greater mass media exposure
d) who are more cosmopolite
e) with greater change agent contact
f) who are more innovative

15. • Highest status in a system seldom interact directly with those of
lowest status and Innovators seldom converse with laggards
• A high-status opinion leader might be an inappropriate role
model for someone of lower status, so interaction between
them might not be beneficial to the latter.
• The wisest farm management decision for the large farmers is to
purchase mechanized farm equipment, such as tractors and
milking machines, as a substitute for hired labor.
• The best economic choice for those on the smaller farms,
however, was to ignore the expensive equipment and
concentrate on horticultural farming.
• However, the small farmers were following the example of the
opinion leaders on the large farms,
• In high degree of homophily, small farmers would interact
mainly with opinion leaders who were themselves small
farmers, would probably be beneficial.

16. • Followers seek information and advice from opinion
leaders who are perceived as more technically
competent than themselves.
• When heterophily occurs, it is usually in the direction of
greater competency, but not too much greater.
• General pattern in interpersonal diffusion is homophily
• Homophily means that the dyadic followers of opinion
leaders usually learn appropriate lessons about
innovations through their ties with their near-peer
opinion leaders.
• But homophilous diffusion networks slow the
percolation of an innovation through the structure of a
social system.

17. Measuring Opinion Leadership
and Network Links
• Four main methods
• (1) sociometric,
• (2) informants' ratings,
• (3) self-designating techniques, and
• (4) observations

18. Measureme
nt Method
Description Question
asked
Advantages Limitations
1. Sociom
etric
Metho
d
Ask system
members to
whom they go
for advice and
information
about an idea
Who is
your
teacher?
Sociometric
questions are
easy to
administer and
are adaptable to
different types
of setting and
issues, highest
Validity
Analysis of sociometric
data is often complex.
Requires a large number
of respondents to locate
a small number of
opinion leaders
Not applicable to sample
designs where only a
portion of the social
system is interviewed
2.Informa
nts
Rating
Subjectively
selected key
informants in a
social system
are asked to
designate
opinion leaders
Who are
the leaders
in this
social
system?
A cost saving
and time saving
method as
compared to the
sociometric
method
Each informants must be
thoroughly familiar with
the system

19. Measurement
Method
Description Question
asked
Advantages Limitations
3. Self
Designatin
g Method
Ask each
respondents a
series of
questions to
determine the
degree to
which he/she
perceives
himself/hersel
f to be an
opinion leader
Are you a
leader in
this social
system?
Measures the
individuals
perception of
his opinion
leadership,
which
influence his
behaviour
Dependent upon
the accuracy with
which respondents
can identify and
report their self
images
4. Observation Identify and
record
communicatin
network link
as they occur
None Unquestioned Obtrusive, works
best in a very
small system, and
may require much
patience by the
observer

21. Characteristics of Opinion Leaders
• have greater exposure to mass media than
their followers
• are more cosmopolite than their followers
• have greater change agent contact than their
followers
• have greater social participation than their
followers
• have higher socioeconomic status than their
followers
• Are early adopters than their followers

22. • must have interpersonal networks with their followers
• must be accessible
• face-to-face communication about new ideas occurs at
meetings of formal organizations and through informal
discussions
• Invention can start from the lowest ranks of the people,
but its extension depends upon the existence of some
lofty social elevation
• If an opinion leader becomes too innovative, or adopts a
new idea too quickly, his or her followers may begin to
doubt the opinion leaders' judgment
• opinion leader in a social system is to help/reduce the
uncertainty about an innovation for his or her followers

23. Monomorphic and Polymorphic
Opinion Leadership
• Polymorphism is the degree to which an
individual acts as an opinion leader for a
variety of topics
• Monomorphism, is the tendency for an
individual to act as an opinion leader for only
a single topic
• The interconnectedness of an individual in a
social system is positively related to the
individual's innovativeness

25. Diffusion Networks
• The heart of the diffusion process is the modeling and
imitation by potential adopters of their near-peers who have
previously adopted a new idea
• In deciding whether or not to adopt an innovation, we all
depend mainly on the communicated experience of others
much like ourselves who have already adopted.
• These subjective evaluations of an innovation mainly flow
through interpersonal networks.
• For this reason, we must understand the nature of networks
if we are to comprehend the diffusion of innovations fully
• Networks can serve as important connections to information
resources
• networks are the invisible routes through which individuals
make things happen

26. • Communication network analysis is a method
of research for identifying the communication
structure in a system, in which relational data
about communication flows are analyzed by
using some type of interpersonal relationships
as the units of analysis.

27. Communication network:
• consists of interconnected individuals who are linked
by patterned flows of information.
• Network has certain degree of structure of stability.
• Patterned aspect of networks provides predictability
to human behavior.
• Study of networks helps to illuminate communication
structure.
• Communication structure consists of cliques and
their interconnections through liaisons and bridges.
Communication structure is very complex.

28. Methods of network analysis
• put individuals in cliques on the basis of their proximity in network
links, so that individuals who are closer are assigned to the same
clique.
• Communication proximity is the degree to which two linked
individuals in a network have personal communication networks
that overlap
• A personal communication network consists of those
interconnected individuals who are linked by patterned
communication flows to a given individual
• One can think of each individual possessing such a personal
network, consisting of the set of other individuals to whom the
focal individual is linked in network relationships
• The focal individual's behavior is determined, in part, by
information and influence that is communicated through the
individual's personal network

29. • Interlocking personal networks: a set of
individuals who interact with each other
• Radial personal networks consist of a set of
individuals who do not interact with each
other
• radial personal networks are more open, and
thus allow the focal individual to exchange
information with a wider environment

30. Both pairs of individuals A-B and C-D have direct communication, but C-D are
more proximate because they are also connected by four indirect links.
This means that C-D are more likely to exchange information than are A-B.

31. The information-exchange potential of communication network links is
negatively related to their degree of
(1) communication proximity, and
(2) homophily.
While rare but Heterophilous links of low proximity (Granovetter's "weak ties"),
seem to play a crucial role in the flow of information about an innovation

32. • Individuals tend to be linked to others who are close
to them in physical distance and who are relatively
homophilous in social characteristics
• Communication network links with neighboring and
homophilous partners are relatively easy and require
less effort.
• But such low-effort network links are usually of
limited value for obtaining information
• In contrast, heterophilous links with socially and
spatially distant others are usually stronger in
carrying useful information to an individual. Easy
networks, thus, are least valuable informationally.

33. Change agent
• A change agent is an individual who influences clients'
innovation decisions in a direction deemed desirable by a
change agency
• In most cases a change agent seeks to secure the adoption of
new ideas, but he or she may also attempt to slow the
diffusion process and prevent the adoption of certain
innovations.
• In decentralized diffusion systems, the potential adopters
may control their change agents; in some cases, certain of
the "clients" serve as their own change agents
• Even in relatively centralized diffusion systems, the long-
range goal of many change agents is to create conditions in
which clients can help themselves, and thus work the change
agent out of a job.

34. • communication as a process in which the participants create and share
information with one another in order to reach a mutual
understanding, is appropriate to describe the contact between a
change agent and his or her clients
• change agent: Eg: teachers, consultants, public health workers,
agricultural extension agents, development workers, salespeople, and
many others
• roles of a change agent is to facilitate the flow of innovations from a
change agency to an audience of clients, but the innovations must be
selected to match the clients' needs and problems
• feedback from the client system must flow through the change agent to
the change agency
• Change agents would not be needed in the diffusion of innovations
were there no social and technical chasm between the change agency
and the client system.
• The change agency system is usually composed of individuals who
possess a high degree of expertise regarding the innovations that are
being diffused

35. Change agent face two problems between the change agency and the client
system: social marginality and information overload.

36. • Heterophily in technical competence is heterophily in
subcultural language differences, socioeconomic status,
beliefs and attitudes
• Change agents, even though link the two social systems,
may also be quite heterophilous in relation to their
clients and to their superiors in the change agency.
• Heterophily gap on both sides of the change agent
creates role conflicts and problems in communication.
• As a bridge between two differing systems, the change
agent is necessarily a marginal figure with one foot in
each of two worlds.
• His or her success in linking the change agency with his
or her client system often lies at the heart of the
Social Marginality

37. Information overload
• State of an individual or a system in which excessive
communication inputs cannot be processed and
utilized, leading to breakdown.
• Large volume of information about innovations
flowing from the change agency often threatens to
overcome the change agent's capacity to screen and
select the most relevant messages for the client
system
• By understanding the needs and problems of his or
her clients, a change agent can selectively transmit to
them only information that is relevant.

38. Seven roles of the change agent are
• to develop a need for change on the part of
clients
• to establish an information-exchange relationship
• to diagnose their problems
• to create intent to change in the clients
• to translate this intent into action
• to stabilize adoption and prevent
discontinuances, and
• to achieve a terminal relationship with the clients

39. Factors in Change Agent Success
A. Change agent success is positively related to
 the extent of change agent effort in contacting clients
 a client orientation, rather than to a change agency orientation
 the degree to which the diffusion program is compatible with clients'
needs
 Empathy and homophily with clients
 higher social status among clients
 greater social participation among clients
 higher education among clients
 credibility in the clients' eyes
 cosmopoliteness among clients
B. Earlier knowers of an innovation have greater change agent contact
than later knowers
C. Earlier adopters of in- novations have more change agent contact than
later adopters
D. Opinion leaders have greater change agent contact than their followers

40. Change Agent Contact with Lower-Status Clients
• There can be little doubt that less-educated, lower-income clients need
the assistance of change agents more than do more elite clients.
• Then why don't change agents concentrate their efforts on their most
disadvantaged clients?
• More elite clients are homophilous with the change agent, and so
communication between the two is easier and more effective.
• Lower-status clients are socioeconomically different from the change
agent, and this heterophily gap impedes effective communication.
• If the change agent is an employee of a government agency or some other
establishment institution, the lower-status client may distrust the change
agent
• less-privileged clients often lack the necessary re- sources to adopt the
innovations that the change agent is promoting
• The change agents think that their lower-status clients are not responsive
to the change agents' efforts at diffusion; this stereotype in the change
agents' minds then serves to discourage them from initiating contact with
these less-advantaged clients.

41. Paraprofessional Aides
• An aide is a less than fully professional change agent who intensively contacts
clients to influence their innovation decisions
• A wide variety of paraprofessional aides function as change agents, ranging from
"barefoot doctors" in China, to paralawyers in U.S. poverty programs, to teachers'
aides.
• One of the important advantages of aides is that there is much lower cost per
client contacted
• Unfortunately, the budgets of most change agencies cannot be expanded to
provide a more reasonable change agent-client ratio, if only professional change
agents are employed.
• Anyway, not enough professionals exist in many fields in developing nations, and
it would take years to train them with university degrees, even if funds to hire
them were available
• main advantage of paraprofessionals over professional field workers is that the
aides are socially closer to the lower-status members of the user system that they
serve
• One of the particular problems often encountered with aides is inauthentic
professionalism, the process through which an aide takes on the dress, speech, or
other identifying marks of a professional in his or her field.