Network Models of the Diffusion of Innovations

This book presents a key to understanding how ideas, products, opinions, and so on take off and spread throughout society, and provides a better means to estimate how fast or slow that spread occurs. This spread is referred to as the diffusion of innovations. The diffusion of innovations occurs among individuals in a social system, and the pattern of communication among these individuals is a social network. This book analyzes how social networks structure the diffusion of innovations.

Chapter 1 reviews diffusion of innovations theory, network analysis, and the datasets used as examples. Chapter 2 provides a review of prior research, and chapter 3 provides relational network models of diffusion which posit that individuals adopt innovations based on their direct relations with others in their social system. Chapter 4 provides structural network models of diffusion which posit that individuals adopt innovations based on their position in the social system. Chapters 5 and 6 present threshold and critical mass models of diffusion. Chapter 7 develops a general threshold model of adoption based on social networks.

This book is addressed to researchers, policymakers, and students interested in the diffusion of innovations or network analysis and to individuals interested in studying the process of social change as represented by a diffusion/network paradigm. Finally, individuals interested in developing, evaluating or understanding communication campaigns and media effects can use these concepts to improve their work.