Sociology Of Diffusion Research Paper

1. Tarde’s Contribution And The Issue Of Diffusion

According to (Tarde [1890] 1979), imitation comprises the integration of initially isolated and individual inventions into collective and social practices. When such inventions disseminate, mix, or interfere with one another, they form the basis of society:

Renewing initiatives stand as a starting point. They bring new needs and new satisfactions to the world, then spread or tend to do so through forced or spontaneous, chosen or unconscious, quick or slow imitation, always responding to a regular pace, as a light wave or a family of termites (Tarde 1979, p. 3).

The diffusion of inventions assumes that social structures, at least at the time of their appearance, result from actions that are not determined by a certain state of the world: ‘Every invention arises as one achieved possibility among thousands of others, as one between other different possibilities’ (p. 49). The three processes mentioned by Tarde—imitation, diffusion, and the creation of social situations—are to be found in future works related to the issue of diffusion, even though these processes are progressively rethought.

Thus, it is assumed that new social practices and new cultural features (‘novelty’) are integrated and transformed at the same time: one should therefore not only speak of ‘imitation’ (Boas 1949). The impacts resulting from the use of novelty also interfere with the other variables of the social system, knowing that the importance of such impacts has little in common with the restricted integration of a new element: when the Tanalas of Madagascar began to grow rice and, therefore, to build terraces, the entire organization of property and laws as well as the social organization changed together (Linton 1936). In all cases, what is adopted is not a single practice or a specific cultural feature, but the principle which founds them: in the Canadian northern territories, the inhabitants learnt how to harness reindeers while observing how to harness horses.

Tarde’s works also tackle the issue of the relationship between individual choices and collective conducts, that is, the progressive construction of norms. The analysis of fashion phenomena belongs perfectly to that sort of approach (Hurlock 1929): fashion is effectively the result of an individual choice, but it also matches a norm in this domain. And the aggregation of individual choices shapes the norm. A study of first-name choices in France during the twentieth century explicitly examines phenomena of that type (Besnard 1979). It also underlines the cyclic dimension of fashions: the choice of new first names is decided by superior social classes, as the renewal of such choices enables them to be distinguished from other social classes, who then imitate them. Fashion therefore fits the process of novelty diffusion and reflects the tension between the will for imitation expressed by some and the search for distinction expressed by others (Simmel [1904] 1956). In addition to this ‘vertical diffusion,’ there is also a horizontal process: people who work in the media or in show business and, in a wider sense, all those who hold a key position in relational networks, disseminate fashions. The social groups who remain close to fashion are the middle classes and the upwardly mobile.

However, the most important issue raised by Tarde lies in the transformation of social structures through the constant integration of novelty. This perspective is addressed in two different ways: anthropologists observe the construction of society according to a diffusionist paradigm, whereas sociologists focus on social forms and forces that may enable or limit novelty diffusion.

2. Diffusionist Anthropology

While contesting the evolutionist idea according to which every society faces different development stages in the field of social, economic, technological, and institutional practices, diffusionist anthropology examines the processes and spaces required for the propagation of these dimensions, as means to design societies. It pays special attention to the migration of practices rather than to their local elaboration. But it often forgets that, in the field of social relationships, a diffusion flow from A to B also involves a reverse movement from B to A, so that practice or belief diffusion also includes interaction diffusion (Sorokin 1964).

Graebner (1911) underlines the existence of ‘areas of social practices,’ which share similar origins (i.e., which originate from a common central point), and which find expression in comparable forms of collective life, beliefs, or economic practices. It may for instance concern the ‘totemic complex’ in Australia: this complex can be characterized by housing, arms, funeral rituals, and astral mythology. But local populations seldom incorporate the features of social practices or beliefs entirely. They especially proceed to some selection among the elements of the system, as well as to some alteration or adaptation to local practices. Every cultural circle that is worked out this way regularly increases, until it meets the development of another cultural circle: their encounter leads to the fusion of both areas.

The analysis of the spatial sharing out of cultures therefore comprises the trajectory of their diffusion and, in that sense, their own history. According to Boas, the cultural areas may be continuous or dis-continuous. In the latter case, all the features that typically characterize a social practice or a belief (e.g., the themes and sequences of a myth) can be found in the center of the area, whereas the other features remain at the periphery. During their trajectories, practices and beliefs may be enriched or, on the contrary, may lose some of their dimensions, due to encounters with elements coming from other spaces. There are strong similarities between the Eastern Siberian populations’ culture and that of British Columbian Indians, whereas Eskimo populations, while not so recent, are less culturally close, even though they live in an intermediate territory.

These perspectives are of double interest. They renew the methodology of anthropology as they contribute to replacing general reflection with empirical enquiries. For instance, Lowie (1934) explains that all known varieties of bananas intended for sale come from new shoots, rather than seeds; it is therefore possible to follow human migrations on the basis of their consumption. Within the northern American tradition, these perspectives result from a reasonable epistemological position, which aggregates internal and external causes of change and gives a key role to the specificity of living conditions and to the nature of the contacts that characterize geographical areas. Boas therefore gives up defining general rules, and turns to questioning the diversity of social and cultural practices within a limited region. However, some of the positions expressed by advocates of diffusionist anthropology seem to result more from their conflict with those who defend natural evolution than from empirically founded research. Thus, one may explain that the majority of civilizations originate from ancient Egyptian culture, which was disseminated by sea. For example, the pyramids erected by Native Americans are considered to be reproductions of those designed by the Cambodians or the Japanese, who would also have taken the Egyptian ones as their model.

3. The Statistical Form Of Diffusion

When linking the age of cultural features or observed social practices with the number of people that may use them, anthropologists often compare the diffusion process to a logistic, epidemiological ‘S’ curve (e.g., Pemberton 1936). In so doing, they encounter the works of numerous sociologists (e.g., Mendras and Forse 1983). At the beginning of the process, a limited number of people are affected by the novelty: the speed of diffusion is therefore rather low; then, the speed regularly increases, and the growing number of informed people leads others to adopt the novelty; finally, the curve decreases, and the number of noninformed people regularly diminishes. This form of diffusion can also be considered as a process of inverted norms: in the first stage, a few pioneers only behave differently from usual; then their behaviors progressively shape new norms and impose themselves on the ‘followers’; during the last phase, ‘resistants’ may slowly and partially accept the integration of new norms. In both perspectives, the ‘S’ curve seems to reflect the diffusion process adequately.

However, this kind of curve seldom reflects the real development of the phenomenon, especially when looking at its complexity. Its existence requires specific conditions with regard to the homogeneity of the populations and to the regularity of the process— conditions that real social situations seldom show. Regarding rumors, Boudon and Bourricaud (1982) identify three statistical forms of diffusion. When a rumor appears to be disseminated by word of mouth within a vast and homogeneous population, the increase in the number of people informed at every stage is roughly proportional to the number of people already informed; the diffusion curve is somewhat exponential. Whenever the population is simultaneously homogeneous and limited, the process shapes a logistic ‘S’ form, which characterizes the epidemiological approach. And if the information is only disseminated through the media (in other words, if the members of a population have few interpersonal relationships), the pace of the increase in the number of informed people is proportional to the number of those not yet informed. Thus, the epidemiological curve is only a rare possibility among other diffusion processes for a novelty, a belief, or a rumor. Referring to the ‘S’ curve, Sorokin ([1937] 1964), while reading his contemporaries’ works, explains that such a phenomenon occurs if and only if the novelty remains of the same kind, and if the civilization, the channels of communication, and the means of support (here including physical strength) it is based on remain similar.

The interest in this kind of analysis resides in the identification of factors, phases, or actors who take part in the achievement of the diffusion process designed to integrate a novelty. Within this perspective, Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955) underline the determining role of influencing networks. As for decision criteria and mechanisms related to Midwest women’s practices in food shopping, clothes, political issues, or the cinema, they observe that choices are inspired by two sequences of influence. The first one refers to the media, who transmit information to everyone; the second is undertaken by influential people, who use the information to implement new social practices (in this case, women coming from the same social class). When observing the prescription of a new medicine, Coleman et al. (1966) perfectly underline the heterogeneous dimension of a population and, in that sense, the first complex mechanisms of innovation adoption. The first doctors to prescribe a medicine (‘the innovators’) ‘test’ it after it has been marketed, and therefore tend to slow down the diffusion process; then, when they are convinced of its advantages, they speed up the diffusion process by actively influencing the diffusion to other doctors who may have hesitated before. These innovating and influencing doctors are those who have kept a close relationship with the world of hospitals and research; they globally benefit from wider and denser relational networks than others. They play the same role of ‘intermediaries’ as the minority of farmers who have ‘specialized’ in links with other regions of the same country, whereas the majority limits its relationships to neighborhood contacts (Hagerstrand 1965).

The diffusion of social practices, cultural features or novelties thus follows a rather unpredictable trajectory: It depends on the kind of interactions that occur. It also depends more on the recognition gained by a novelty when being used than on its own characteristics. With this in mind, the sociological analysis of diffusion is based, at least partially, on the diffusion of rumors; the latter finally create the effective use of novelty. In that sense, the ‘self-fulfilling’ prophecy (Merton 1949) remains at the top of diffusion issues.

4. The Conditions Of Diffusion

The novelty diffusion processes may not always be perfectly comparable; however, the conditions required for their existence always relate to the initial action of ‘pioneers,’ ‘innovators,’ ‘intermediaries,’ or ‘cosmopolitans’ (Merton 1949). These types of actors are the first ones who effectively use it. They benefit from their own capability to behave regardless of the norms, as opposed to the rest of the population, because they benefit from an additional background of cultural Bibliography: The ‘stranger’ character often harmonizes with the diffusion analysis. But the ability to reverse norms, the type of ability which allows a pioneer’s behavior to be seen as a normal one, assumes that cultural differences refer to a group’s substantial weight (Moscovici 1976); to put it more simply, such an ability requires that the novelty becomes a matter of interest for the rest of the population, the reasons for such an interest being cultural, economic, or strategic.

Such conditions are obviously not always immediately fulfilled. Therefore, the researcher’s interest may turn to the analysis of obstacles and resistance faced by the diffusion process. Within such a perspective, Bloch (1935) examines the reasons that may explain the relatively slow diffusion of water mills (a one millennium process), knowing that such mills show marked advantages in productivity increase and labor reduction. The water mill cannot be set up everywhere, as it has to be supplied with numerous and regular streams; in the Middle Ages, the risk of a city being besieged led the lord to keep a significant number of traditional millstones, as these mills operate regardless of the natural environment, which could be controlled by the enemies. Building a water mill also requires that the builders legally possess the supplying stream, although one stream may run through different rural properties. It also assumes that builders are able to finance the effective erection of the building, whereas their available financial capital is actually low. It finally requires that they make profit on the investments, by dedicating them to a wider community use than the one offered by traditional techniques; but social structures are based on family farming. Nonetheless, such objective dimensions are not the only reasons that may explain the slow diffusion of water mills. From the lords’ point of view, being obliged to keep an important workforce available in order to use the millstones also represents an indicator of power as well as an opportunity to keep everybody in their own social position within the existing division of labor. There are symbolic and political dimensions involved in such a process. Despite fines and police force activities to make the use of common mills compulsory, despite the payment of high taxes when millstones are in use, despite courts’ decisions in favor of the owners of water mills, despite all these efforts, the use of mills remains an issue.

The factors interfering in novelty diffusion are diverse: legal, symbolic, strategic, economic, and cultural. Their number and their interdependency do not allow for any forecast about the end of the novelty. Within novelty diffusion, the competition between different rationalities may interfere in a positive or in a negative way (Alter 2000). In addition, many novelties are implemented in favor of a restricted minority of the population; the diffusion may be very quick, and it will only concern a fraction of the population (Edmonson 1961). In other words, the price to be paid to adopt innovation may slow down its diffusion, whereas the expected income would speed it up (Griliches 1957). The diffusion analysis therefore comprises a nondiffusion one. It could not be purely diffusion oriented.

Finally, the lessons to be drawn from these different perspectives are threefold. The diffusion of an object, a belief, or a political system does not depend on its own intrinsic qualities but more on the involved social actors’ rationalities. Novelty diffusion leads to the transformation of social norms; this transformation is based on the existence of social actors who break the established social order. A novelty does not disseminate without radically changing; it could therefore always be described as an innovation, at least partially.

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