Commentary on Diffusion of Innovations

Louis Eisenberg

I’d like to comment on Rogers’s homophily/heterophily distinction (he defines homophily as “the degree to which a pair of individuals who communicate are similar”). One of Greg’s discussion questions is, “Is it always better for a social system to be heterophilous?” This question reflects a general issue that seemed a little unclear to me. During the class discussion, the sense seemed to be that heterophily was good and homophily was bad, like dynamic versus static or progressive versus reactionary. But I think the dichotomy is more subtle than that. This is in the same vein as the comment someone (David, I think) made that it was a mistake to discuss the diffusion of innovations as if it were always a good thing. I wholeheartedly agree. Yes, with newer and more efficient forms of technology, diffusion is usually a good thing.

But what would, say, Starhawk think of that? If we’re talking about the spread of new ideas, it’s not much of a leap to think about globalization and the spread of American culture. Now, I’m not endorsing or rejecting Starhawk’s perspective on the world; I’m just saying it’s worth considering in this context. Is it possible that this positive connotation for heterophily is a somewhat ethnocentric view? Everyone likes things that make them happier and healthier, but the Western world has a particular obsession with the notion that bigger, stronger, faster will bring us more happiness. I have no interest in arguing that the progression of technology is a bad thing. But does every society want new technology spreading as fast as possible?

Consider an isolated tribal society that is technologically backward by our standards. In Rogers’s terms, I imagine we would label it as exhibiting a high degree of homophily. But I can think of other words that homophily brings to mind: kinship, unity, stability. People really like being around other people who are similar to them. Homophily might restrict the spread of new ideas, but it can also reinforce existing ideas -- and what if those existing ideas are sufficient to make a society happy? Rogers makes the implicit assumption that when new ideas diffuse through a society, that society will be wise enough to keep the good ones and reject the bad ones. That might work well for ours (though I think you could make an argument that this isn’t always true), but when it’s the ideas of a technologically sophisticated society spreading to a more simple one, who can say if they’ll be able to distinguish? Look what’s happened to the environment in many developing countries. My point: Heterophily is not inherently better than homophily.