Diffusion of Innovations : Radio

 The Diffusion of Innovations is a theory that explains  why some technologies and  concepts were adopted while others weren't.  The adoption of the radio is a great technology to study with this theory. Looking at the diagram to the right, you can see the bell curve of adoption that starts with the innovators and ends with the laggards or the people who don't want to  utilize the technology for whatever reason.

 Looking at the history of the radio, the Innovators would be inventors like Guglielmo Marconi who sent the first wireless telegraph, and Charles "Doc" Herrold, who was the  first person to hold regularly scheduled programs for radio amateurs. The innovators were the people willing to go out on a limb and make risky decisions to really develop the technology.  The early adopters would be the radio amateurs, and the government.  They  see the technology as something that may be beneficial and they are usually educated . They don't have to take as big of risks as the innovators.  The early Majority of the radio users would most likely include everyone that started utilizing the technology during the radio boom. This would include probably wealthier and middle class families,  companies, and  entertainment branches. The late majority would include the general population. The laggards would include people who want to stick to more traditional ways, the extreme skeptics, poor people and people living in rural areas/ anyone else who might not have access to the technology. 

Maybe the laggards saw some negative effects of the radio that the others didn't see. Maybe they were in other industries that were being affected by the rise of the radio technology.  There were  negative and positive effects of the radio. A few disadvantages were that the radio wasn't always reliable. You wouldn't be able to get a strong signal if the weather was bad  or if you lived in a rural area outside of the broadcasting tower's reach. However, the positives greatly overshadow the positives. The radio revolutionized communication by making  news more accessible, it allowed political figures to reach a larger audience,  it helped the music industry and musicians to flourish, and it was another form of entertainment, just to name a few.