“Communication Channels for Innovation:

Historically, the diffusion of innovations required some kind of physical contact between people. Hence migrations and wars were always important sources of the diffusion of innovation, because immigrants and returning soldiers brought with them things that were regarded as innovations by their societies. The need for contact also meant that special categories of people (that is, merchants, traders, explorers) have played a particular role in the historic diffusion of innovations.

The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century provided a new possibility: the diffusion of innovation without physical contact between peoples. Litreacy was historically in the hands of social elites or special categories of persons with supportive relations with them (for example, scribes, monks). Thus  the real impact of print media was dependent on the development of mass education and literacy, a twentieth-centuryphenomenon that limits the effectiveness of print media because it has yet to happen on a larger scale in some developing nations. Electronic media created a new threshold. Radio and television had great potential for the mass diffusion of innovation because they do not require literacy. We noted earlier the “deterritorialized interaction” possible with proliferating forms of information technology, which gives them an enormous potential for the diffusion of all kinds of innovation. But like the limitations of print media, the absence of education, “computer literacy”, and sufficient resources among parts of the human population limit the diffusion of information technologies.

Diffusion and the Mass Media:

We are inundated with mass-media messages trying to get us to do something, to change something, or try some new product. And we worry a lot about the ability of the media to change people’s behavior about things like violence and sexuality. But most research about the mass media suggests that they have limited direct effects for producing change. Mass communication is one-way communication with limited capacity for feedback from audiences who listen, read, or watch. Recipients of mass communication can’t really ask questions, get clarification, or talk back in any meaningful way. Effective persuasion to adopt change usually requires interactive communication between an agent promoting change and potential adopters. Direct effects of mass-media communication are limited because they are typically modified by interpersonal communication among people who are tuned to the same media message. You are likely to discuss the significance of media messages with friends, family members, and co-workers, and they are critically reshaped and assessed by the perspectives of informal groups. (…)”

 

Resource: HARPER, C.L., LEICHT, K.T. (2007): Exploring Social Change. America and the world. Fifth Edition. New Jersey: Pearson, Prentice Hall

Momento nchi del día: un momento de complicidad muy tierno. ¿Y el tuyo?