Evolution of Digital Media Technologies: Diffusion Theory

Kathy E. Gill24 October 2006

Overview

Recap Last Week More Theory Group Discussion Course Projects

Recap: Linear innovation-diffusion theory

The process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the

members of a social system.

Rogers, 1995, page 5

Recap:Rogers: Five steps of adoption

Knowledge Persuasion Decision (adopt or reject) Implementation Confirmation

Barriers to Adoption

Habit, social groups QWERTY v DVORAK

QWERTY, 1873, solved a problem August Dvorak (UW), 1932 time-motion

studies Home row: 32% keys v 70% keys Left hand: 57% v 44%

Manufacturers, instructors, textbooks … social system resisted (still resists) change

Barriers To Innovation

Narrow World View VCR, developed by Ampex Corp, 1950s

TV stations $50K, size of refrigerator R&D employees said “miniaturize” Licensed to Sony By 1995,no US company made VCRs

Rogers would also say poor “technology transfer” from R&D

Barriers to Innovation

Profit motive 1930, prototypes for two refrigerators:

gas and electric Gas had no moving parts

GE, GM, Westinghouse and Kelvinator invested heavily in R&D and promotion for electric because “larger profit” potential (Rogers)

This is why your refrigerator “hums”

Technology and Society

Technological determinism Tech is “autonomous” – out of human

control – the “cause” of change Social construction of technology

Society shapes technology Refrigerator example

Greatest profit to manufacturers not greatest advantage to consumers

Many technologies shaped by military

Modern Computing History (1/3)

1937 : Alan Turing, Turing Machine Theoretical model of a computer

1938 : Claude Shannon’s Master’s Thesis “possibly the most important of the 20th century” Showed how the concept of True and False could be

used to represent functions of switches (the foundation of binary code)

Modern Computing History (2/3)

1943 : Alan Turing & COLOSSUS WWII machine designed to break German code 1,800 vacuum tubes Earliest working programmable electronic digital

computer

Modern Computing History (3/3)

1943-1946 : ENIAC First fully electronic computer 18,000 vacuum tubes; 10’ tall, 1000 sq ft of floor

space, weighed ~30 tons 1945 : first computer “bug” (literally!) 1951 : 1st Computer Sold to U.S.

Bureau of Census - UNIVAC I 1954 : 1st Computer Sold to Private Corp.,

General Electric Company - UNIVAC I

Recent Computing History (1/2)

1975 : Bill Gates & Paul Allen, Microsoft 1976 : Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniack,

Apple 1980 : PC DOS 1981 : IBM – PC

IBM attempts to co-opt upstart firm

Recent Computing History (2/2)

1983 : Apple Macintosh Computer Graphical User Interface - GUI

1984 : Laser Printers for PCs High quality affordable printing

1990s : Communications & Multimedia Audio Video Internet - WWW Browsers

Computers and Networks (1/2)

Facilitate Concentration of knowledge and control Distribution of knowledge and control A “two-edged” sword

Have the power to Amass and interrogate enormous volumes of data Process data at enormous rates for real systems

and simulations

Computers and Networks (2/2)

Combined, they challenge Constitutional definitions Social structures Lifestyle options

No network is more challenging (disruptive) than “the Net” Funded and developed by the DoD

Computers and Networks (2/2)

1962 - The first recorded description of the social interactions that could be enabled through networking J.C.R. Licklider of MIT envisioned a

globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site. In spirit, the concept was very much like the Internet of today.

Internet Society: History of the Internet

ARPANET (Rand, MIT, UCLA)

1969 : 1st node on the Internet 1971 : 15 nodes 1982 : TCP/IP

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, the de facto standard for transmitting data over networks

Picking Up Speed

1987 : Apple’s Hypertext 1991 : Tim Berners-Lee at European

Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva conceived/birthed the World Wide Web

1993 : National Center for Supercomputing Applications [NCSA] - University of Illinois created a WWW browser named Mosiac

Faster... faster... faster

April 94 : Mosaic Communications [Clark & Andreesen]

Oct 94 : Netscape Beta Released Nov 94 : Mosaic Co ==> Netscape Aug 9, 1995 : Netscape IPO

Initial Public Offering, to “go public” One measure of adoption: hosts

Internet Hosts – 1971-2006 1971 : 15 1981 : 213 1985 : 1,961 1990 : 313,000 1994 : 3,864,000 1996 : 9,472,000 2003 : 171,638,000 2006 : 394,991,000

http://www.isc.org/ds/host-count-history.html

0

100000000

200000000

300000000

400000000

1971 1990 2006

Hosts

Today’s Internet

Clearly an example of social construction

Reading Discussion

Group 1 Leads Groups 2-5, review Group 1 blogposts Question:

What factors have led to the adoption of computing technologies? Where do you see communication technologies moving in the future? What audiences, applications? Why? How do we, as a society, decide to fund long-range research that may or may not "pay off"?

Project Abstracts Questions?

State the research area you have selected. (1-2 sentences – preliminary statement is the draft submitted via Peer Review, a Catalyst tool)

Explain why this is an important topic to research. Explain how you visualize breaking your topic into

three timelines (past-present-future). Explain what theories you expect to use to support

your claims. Provide an annotated list of at least five scholarly

resources related to your topic. Each resource should be from a unique source. Remember that the final project must have 12 scholarly citations as well as those from reputable media. Provide proper citation and include the type of information provided, including key arguments.