Comparing the ideas of Rogers and Gladwell

Comparative Review of the ideas of Rogers and Gladwell

Some social changes result from the innovations that are adopted in a society . These can include technological inventions , new scientific knowledge , new beliefs , or a new fashion in the sphere of leisure Diffusion is not automatic but selective an innovation is adopted only by people who are motivated to do so

These people who adopt certain innovations and spread them into what Gladwell calls a social epidemic (Gladwell 7 ) may well be the key (or one of the keys , at the very least ) to

the elusive trickle-down theory of opinion leadership , a concept that is as appealing philosophically as it is difficult to implement . Everett M . Rogers articulated this phenomenon with his Diffusion of Innovation ' theory more than 40 years ago , and other icons of communication and social research have been seeking to unravel the true nature of persuasion and media since the 1920s . Malcolm Gladwell , drawing heavily on concepts developed by researchers and theorists in the fields of Chaos Complexity , and Memetics , repackaged and popularized some of these ideas in his book , The Tipping Point . Gladwell takes Rogers ' ideas a bit farther , adding some nomenclature of his own and drawing on additional findings in individual and social psychology

The tipping point ' is the point at which a trend catches fire - spreading exponentially through the population . The idea suggests that for good or bad , change can be promoted rather easily in a social system through a domino effect . The tipping point idea finds its origins in diffusion theory , which is a set of generalizations regarding the typical spread of innovations within a social system

This looks into the similarities and differences between Rogers Diffusion of Innovations ' and Gladwell 's The Tipping Point , based on their take of how changes occur in a society . It explores the processes that these changes go through and examines the key people involved in making these changes happen . It presents the key points of the authors as they agree or disagree on these ideas . But more importantly , the evaluates these ideas of change as the authors seek out methods on how the processes of change can be manipulated in to effect some positive social transformation

The Diffusion of Innovation

The study of the diffusion of innovation is the study of how , why , and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures

According to Wikipedia , the original diffusion research was done as early as 1903 by the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde who plotted the original S-shaped diffusion curve . Tarde 's 1903 S-shaped curve is of current importance because "most innovations have an S-shaped rate of adoption (Rogers 24 . The variance lies in the slope of the "S . Some new innovations diffuse rapidly creating a steep S-curve other innovations have a slower rate of adoption , creating a more gradual slope of the S-curve

This variation in the way change occurs was what caught the interest of the two authors described above . While Rogers...