Markus, L. (1987) Towards a ‘critical mass’ theory of interactive media: Universal access, independence, and diffusion. Communication Research, 14, pp. 491-511.

Discussion leader/summarizer: LaurieBuis

Research Question:

How can we account for and explain the diffusion of interactive media? More specifically, the goal is to explain the success or failure of universal access in relation to an interactive medium within a community.

Key Points/Claims/Methods

The article start out with a discussion of Everett Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations theory and how it relates to universal access, interdependence and critical mass. An outline of Markus' argument follows.

The first people to adopt a technology do so because the have the means and the desire to acquire the new technologies. These people invest high start up costs to obtain a technology. Because they are adopting a new technology that has not yet been established, they may or may not see a return in their investment. Diffusion occurs when people observe the early adopters and acquire the new innovation in an attempt to gain the same benefits. Later adopters do not receive the maximum benefits of a technology because they were slow to adopt.

Universal access is considered to be the ability to reach all members of a community through a specific interactive medium. Universal access has been obtained once all members of a community can be reached. Universal access is important for two reasons.

1. If some people adopt a technology and others do not, a community will be subdivided into technology uses and non-technology users.
2. If there is less than universal access, medium adopters who communicate with both adopters and non-adopters will receive less than full benefits because not everyone they wish to communicate with will use the technology. For example, if telephones have less than universal access, many people will not receive maximum benefits because not everyone they want to call with have a telephone.

Successful diffusion of interactive media seems to follow a pattern of reciprocal interdependence where later adopters are influenced by early adopters and vice versa. In some cases, coercion may be necessary to spur adoption. An example of this would be when a manager requires all employees to adopt a technology.

Critical mass is defined by Oliver et al. as "a small segment of the population that chooses to make big contributions to the collective action, while the majority do little or nothing". This theory attempts to predict the probability, extent and effectiveness of group action when pursuing a public good (in this case, the universal access of an interactive medium).

When applying the theory of critical mass to the adoption of interactive media, Markus sets forth a series of propositions that attempt to explain the achievement of universal access:

1. There are two states of access, all or nothing [AndrewBabson: more precisely- _stable_ states of access (p. 500)- I point this out because she's imagining in her opinion the natural outcome of her theory, not describing the diffusion states which lead to that outcome]. Either an interactive media will spread to all members of a community, or it will spread to no one.
2. Factors that reduce the amount of resources a person must contribute in order to adopt and use a technology (such as skill, effort, cost, etc.) will increase the likelihood of universal access.
3. Heterogeneity of resources (information to provide and information to seek) and interests will increase the likelihood of universal access.
4. The presence of high resource and high interest early adopters will increase the likelihood of universal access.
5. Interventions that increase the level of interest and resources within a community will increase the likelihood of universal acces.

It is important to note that this theory approaches the adoption of technologies from the community level of analysis.

Critique

There are some portions of this theory that I really like. First of all, it is quite easy to understand and upon reading the article, you can truly understand the fundamentals of the theory. It just makes sense. I also like that it attempts to explain parts of the diffusion process. But, I do see some weaknesses of the theory that I do not like. First of all, it fails to attempt to predict individual behavior. Because it is centered on a community level of analysis, no predictions can be made on the individual level. Secondly, though it explains how the diffusion process works for some innovations, it fails to account for why some innovations that may be technologically equal or even superior fail. For example, think about VHS and Betamax... why did betamax fail? Yes, it failed to reach critical mass, but why? Lastly, critical mass theory is good for looking back on the diffusion of an innovation, but it isn't a theory that can be used explicitly during the diffusion process. [DerekHansen: I'm not sure I agree with this last sentence. He provides a few good examples of what can be done to facilitate the adoption of a new medium based upon his propositions. For example, he mentions that adoption seems to occur faster when the medium is able to be used for many purposes including entertainment (pg. 505). Elsewhere he talks about the importance of high-resource (i.e., often sought after) individuals being early adoptors. Encouraging such people to use a new system is an obvious suggestion.] [AndrewBabson: This may seem a coarse-grained critique, but the reason she can't find much evidence for universal access is that it's a ridiculous concept to begin with. She was on the right track with interdependence- i.e., how people in a community rely on each other to condition usages of a particular interactive technology.]

Connections with other readings, ideas, etc.

One thing that I find particularly interesting about the theory of critical mass and the Reed article on the value of communities is that despite the fact that these readings seem intuitive, according to the other readings for today, it isn't applicable to online communities. The Schoberth and Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists readings suggest that the more users participating in an online community, the less effective communication is. In the other readings for today, it is suggested that a larger number of participants in an online community leads to discomfort with diversity and disunity within the community. Perhaps the critical mass theory cannot be applied to all forms of interactive media effectively.

DerekHansen: I agree that this work addresses a different situation than some of the other readings: namely it focuses on adoption of a communication medium within an existing off-line community. This theory would directly apply to situations such as our class, colaboratoris, open source programmers, but not so directly to some online communities where by definition everyone is already using the same communication medium. However, many of the concepts can even apply in these situations. For example, some online communities adopt a certain technology feature within their own community that shares some properties with a communication medium: E.g., eBay users who rely upon PayPal to facilitate transactions. Many ideas from this article apply to such a situation. Without universal "access" (or in this case use of PayPal), the users have to maintain more than one way of paying and it is more difficult to "reach" (exchange money for items) non-users. It is also clear that his idea of interdependence applies (namely that people who have already started using PayPal are affected by future user's choice of adoption). Other concepts don't map as well to this example. Another situation that may be relevant is when an online community wants to switch to a new medium or implement a new technology (i.e., chat) for some of its activities.

Discussion