Diffusion and Acceptance of Change

Abstract

Our final items by B. Berelson on the one hand and E. Katz on the other serve to illustrate the dilemma of the social scientist in the face of such a complex and yet pressing range of problems as those associated with ‘the population explosion’. On the one hand, he is naturally inclined towards trying to understand the situation in all its variety. On the other hand, he knows that, as Berelson points out, ‘doing academic studies on family structure, or community power structure, or innovative personalities, or communication networks… is not going to pay off with results in time to be useful’ (editor’s emphasis). What he can do, however, and in effect this is what Berelson is doing, is to apply in a rough and ready way the insights gained by social scientists in other areas to the particular problems brought about by the ‘population explosion’. The article by Katz, on ‘The Two-step Flow of Communication’, is reproduced here deliberately to drive home this point. In it Katz discusses a number of studies concerned with decision-making and the adoption of innovations among farmers, doctors, shoppers and voters. None of these concerns the mass adoption of birth control — one of the major policy decisions taken by many governments in the underdeveloped countries in recent years. Yet the understanding gained from these studies influences the way we approach the implementation of a birth control programme.