Evolution of Digital Media Technologies: Diffusion Theory Kathy E. Gill 24 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 20 th 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)  : 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)  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 InternetHistory 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 : 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

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.