![]()
Part I
Adoption and Use of Emerging Media
![]()
1
Podcast Adoption and Use: Impact of Diminishing Variation of Technology Advantage
Xigen Li and Li Zeng
A variety of portable media devices and digital formats were developed in recent years to distribute information through the Internet, with podcast among the digital formats used to deliver various media content for these portable devices. A podcast is a collection of digital media files distributed over the Internet for playback on portable media players and personal computers. While the same content also may be available through direct download or streaming, a podcast is different from other digital audio and video delivery format due to its use of syndication feeds. This allows users to subscribe to and download podcasts automatically to their media playback devices when new content is added.
Although a podcast uses existing computer technology to deliver information, its technology advantages and unique method of distributing and receiving information began to attract users in the mid-2000s. The information delivery system changed rapidly, and the effects of such changes on the adoption and use of new media systems have brought many questions about media use in the digital age (Evans, 2008; O’Toole, 2007). For example, because new media emerge at a fast pace, the technology advantages that the new media bring become less significant. What effects will such diminishing variation of technology advantage produce on new media adoption and use? This study examines the factors that influence the adoption and use of podcast and the impact of diminishing variation of technology advantage on the adoption and use of the newly emerged media. It also explores to what degree technology and nontechnology factors contribute to the adoption and use of podcast and examines the following propositions:
As new media technologies emerge and are put into use, the technology attributes play a less important role than the perceived value of media content in the adoption of new media.
People become less sensitive to the technology advantages of new media than to the perceived value of media content provided by the new media and the social utility of using the new media.
Theories of Technology Adoption
New media have been emerging at an accelerating speed since digital media entered the scene for information distribution and access. Adoptions of technology innovations for communication needs and factors that influence adoption have been attracting scholars’ attention for a long time. Adoption of new media occurs under different conditions, and scholars looked at personal, social, and technological factors that influenced the adoption of new media. Theories and models were identified to explain new media adoption under different conditions.
Diffusion of innovations. The diffusion of innovations theory illustrates the process of adoption of innovation and the factors influencing the adoption (Rogers, 2003). These factors were tested through numerous studies, particularly in the digital age, in which new media develop quickly. Four groups of factors were identified to play a key role in the adoption process: (1) Adopter characteristics: A variety of individual personality traits have been explored for their impacts on adoption of innovations (Greenhalgh, Robert, Macfarlane, Bate, & Kyriakidou, 2004). Among them, innovativeness is a major factor; (2) Socioeconomic influences: Those who have the highest social status and financial resources, as well as the closest contact to scientific sources and interaction with other innovators, are among the early adopters. Their financial resources allow them to absorb the risk and tolerate possible failure of adopting technologies (Rogers, 1962); (3) Interpersonal channels and mass media use: The role of interpersonal channels is especially important in persuading an individual to adopt an innovation, and earlier adopters rate both mass media and interpersonal sources as more important than later adopters (Price, Feick, & Smith, 1986); and (4) Perceived attributes of an innovation: Potential adopters evaluate an innovation on its relative advantage (the perceived efficiencies obtained from the innovation compared to the tools currently in use), compatibility with the pre-existing system, complexity or difficulty to learn, trialability or testability, and its potential for reinvention (using the tool for initially unintended purposes) (Rogers, 1986). Among the four, the perceived attributes as a technological factor is found to be the most powerful factor in an adoption decision (Rogers, 2003). The effect of the technological factors was confirmed by a number of studies (Chávez, 2011; C. A. Lin, 2009; Tornatzky & Klein, 1982; Vishwanath & Golohaber, 2003), although the findings of some studies show that the effects of perceived attributes on adoption of innovations were inconsistent (Leung & Wei, 2000; Vishwanath & Golohaber, 2003; Wei, 2001). The relative influence of adopter characteristics, socioeconomic status, and media exposure on the adoption of new media also have been found in research on a wide range of technologies, including the Internet (Atkin, Jeffres, & Neuendorf, 1998; Williams & Girish, 2012), high-definition television (HDTV) (Dupagne, 1999), cellular phones (Leung & Wei, 2000), and digital cable (Kang, 2002). Personal attributes such as innovativeness were found to be significant predictors of online service (C. A. Lin, 2001) and webcasting adoption (C. A. Lin, 2004). The effect of technological attributes on the adoption of new media also varies by adopter categories (T. T. C. Lin, Chiu, & Lim, 2011).
Expectancy-value model. The expectancy-value model, part of the uses and gratifications theory, suggests that audiences actively seek information from media to fulfill their needs (Levy, 1987; Rubin, 1983). The model proposes that media use could be explained by expectancy value, the difference between perceived benefits offered by the medium and the gratification derived from media use (Palmgreen & Rayburn, 1985). It has been widely tested in studies of adoption, use, and consumption of mass media and new media (Babrow & Swanson, 1988; Jeffres & Atkin, 1996; C. A. Lin, 1993; Palmgreen & Rayburn, 1982; Palmgreen & Rayburn, 1985; Rayburn & Palmgreen, 1984; Rubin, 1983). The relative values or advantages provided by an innovation or technology were found to be the main reason for adopting it (Lehmann & Ostlund, 1974; Leung & Wei, 1999).
Technology acceptance model. Similar to the expectancy-value model, the technology acceptance model (TAM) proposes the perception of benefits as a predictor of new technology use (Igbaria, Guimaraes, & Davis, 1995). Perceived usefulness and ease of use as motivational variables correlate to adoption and use of a specific information technology (Cho & Hung, 2011; Davis, 1993; Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989; Karahanna & Straub, 1999). Numerous studies testing the hypothesis showed that perceived usefulness had strong influence, both directly and indirectly, on the use of computers and other technology devices (Davis, 1989; Dishaw & Strong, 1999; Karahanna & Straub, 1999). In addition, scholars identified the direct effect of perceived usefulness on behavioral intention to use the new technology and the indirect effect of perceived usefulness on actual use of technology (Park, Lee, & Cheong, 2007). The capability of being used flexibly was found to have a greater impact on attitude toward mobile games than mere enjoyment, a motivational factor (Okazaki, Skapa, & Grande, 2008). Motivation for communication and instrumental use affected the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and actual use of new technology (Park, 2010). The effect of perceived usefulness plays a role, together with perceived critical mass and perceived enjoyment in adopting mobile video call services (J. C.-C. Lin & Liu, 2009). The impact of perceived ease of use on Internet service adoption is moderated by temporal distance and perceived risk (Shen & Chiou, 2009).
While these theories and models continue to work in explaining the adoption and use of new media, the changing scenario of technology advance challenges the assumptions that these theories or models hold. For example, the diffusion of innovations theory suggests that perceived attributes of an innovation are among the leading factors in an adoption decision (Rogers, 2003). The theory assumes that the latest innovations have significant technology advantages over the existing technology, and users are able to detect such technology attributes and make a decision on adoption and use based on perceived attributes. When studying computer-related technology innovations, C. A. Lin (1998) noted that the discriminative power of three of the five attributes suggested by Rogers—compatibility, trialability, and observability—was significantly diminished and negligible due to technology advances. The diffusion of innovations theory has limitations in explaining new media applications in the digital age (C. A. Lin, 1998). What differentiates media technology in the digital age from the days when new media rolled out gradually is the much faster pace of technology advancement. A new generation of media systems comes out almost every year, and sometimes even in a few months. The accelerating pace of technology advancement and its consequences were not addressed by the theory and often were ignored in previous adoption studies. As to the technology acceptance model, it was mostly used in studies related to computer applications. Since the model was based on two key variables, it was criticized for its simplicity and omission of factors that play an essential role in the adoption process (Bagozzi, 2007; Lee, Kozar, & Larsen, 2003; Teo, Lee, & Chai, 2008).
The changes brought by new media technology call for a retest of the theories and an exploration of the factors that play key roles in technology adoption and use in the digital age. The emergence of podcast as a format to deliver media content brings about a noticeable new phenomenon associated with the rapidly changing media technology: diminishing variation of technology advantage. The examination of the adoption and use of new media in the context of diminishing variation of technology advantage would provide a novel perspective in our understanding of the process of adopting emerging media.
Diminishing Variation of Technology Advantage
Diminishing variation of technology advantage refers to the marginalized differences in technology improvement and replaceability between the existing and the latest technology innovations. The concept is developed based on technology attributes in the diffusion of innovations theory and the functional equivalence perspective. The diffusion of innovations theory identifies technology attributes as one of the leading factors in predicting adoption of innovations. Among the five attributes, relative advantage has been found to be a significant predictor of technology adoption (Leung & Wei, 1998; Li, 2004; C. A. Lin, 1998). New media perceived as having functional equivalence and being more effective than existing media in satisfying the same needs tend to displace existing media (Kayany & Yelsma, 2000). These theoretical perspectives apply well to technology innovations that are strikingly new over existing technology devices and when the degree of technology improvement is substantial. However, in the digital age, new media technologies roll out at a much faster pace and do not always bear considerable advantages over existing ones. When people are still trying a relatively new media technology, another new technology or the next generation of media technology begins to emerge. This trend becomes especially noticeable since the advent of the Internet and with the development of new computer technology and information delivery systems. Technology advantages of the new media over the existing media continue to diminish as media technology advances. For example, not long after streaming audio/video was put into use, a variety of other media delivery formats appeared, including podcasting. These formats appeared one after another, with the later ones as functional equivalents of the earlier media, but not necessarily having significant technology advantages. In this case, the newer technology innovations with functional equivalence but marginal technology advantages may not serve as replacements for the older ones. The differences between technology innovations are even less noticeable when a series of new media technologies along the same line come out in a short period of time, such as podcast and similar media technology used to deliver audio information.
In this study, we expect that the technology attributes of new media continue to affect adoption and use of new media. Due to the diminishing variation of technology advantage, however, the effect of technology attributes on adoption and use of podcast would be much weaker than those seen in previous studies of technology innovations: 49%–87% of the variance in the rate of adoption being explained by technology attributes (Rogers, 2003)....
