Social Media Mining: An Introduction

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CUUS2079-07 CUUS2079-Zafarani 978 1 107 01885 3 January 13, 2014 17:17

194 Information Diffusion in Social Media

100

75

50

25

0

Innovators

2.5%

Laggards

16%

Early

Adopters

13.5%

Early

Majority

34%

Late

Majority

34%

Figure 7.5. Types of Adopters and S-Shaped Cumulative Adoption Curve.

did not adopt it because of its high price and the seed’s inability to reproduce.

Their study showed that farmers received information through two main

channels: mass communications from companies selling the seeds and

interpersonal communications with other farmers. They found that although

farmers received information from the mass channel, the influence on their

behavior was coming from the interpersonal channel. They argued that

adoption depended on a combination of information from both channels.

They also observed that the adoption rate follows anS-shaped curve and

that there are five different types of adopters based on the order in which

they adopt the innovations: (1)Innovators(top 2.5%), (2)Early Adopters

(13.5%), (3)Early Majority(34%), (4)Late Majority(34%), and (5)Lag-

gards(16%). Figure7.5depicts the distribution of these adopters as well as

the cumulative adoption S-shaped curve. As shown in the figure, the adop-

tion rate is slow when innovators or early adopters adopt the product. Once

early majority individuals start adopting, the adoption curve becomes linear,

and the rate is constant until all late majority members adopt the product.

After the late majority adopts the product, the adoption rate becomes slow

once again as laggards start adopting, and the curve slowly approaches

100%.

Katz: Two-Step Flow Model

Elihu Katz, a professor of communication at the University of Pennsyl-

vania, is a well-known figure in the study of the flow of information. In