Barriers to diffusion

1. Barriers to diffusion • Physical barriers in nature: • rivers, oceans, lakes, and mountain ranges. • Cultural • religious beliefs. • language • impedes the easy flow of ideas and fads from the United States and English-speaking Canada to French Canadians in Québec. • Political boundary can impede or slow down the dissemination of disease. • Economic factors – • people in certain places cannot afford to purchase a new commodity or technological innovation.

2. Types of Diffusion • Expansion Diffusion – idea or innovation spreads outward from the hearth • Contagious • Hierarchical • stimulus • Relocation Diffusion- migrants bring an idea/innovation physically

3. Worldwide, there are 1.4 billion followers of Islam There are between 5 – 7 million Muslims in the United States Diffusion of Islam 630 – 1600 AD

4. Hierarchical Diffusion- ideas/artifacts spread between larger places or social elite later to smaller places or less prominent people Fashion trends Cell phone use in the early 1990s

5. Music and Clothing (hierarchical diffusion) • New clothing and music fads, for example,spread quickly among major world cities such as New York, Los Angeles,London, Paris, and Tokyo. • Only later do they filter down the urban hierarchy,

6. Starbucks.. They're everywhere

7. All individuals and areas outward from the source region are affected Term implies direct contact Usually associated with disease Contagious Diffusion

8. Distribution of West Nile Virus: Humans, Birds, & Mosquitos, 2001

9. Diffusion of Africanized Bees after their arrival to Brazil, South America

10. Relocation Diffusion • Spread of culture through physical movement • Language, religion, food preferences • Can show spotty spatial distribution

13. Hmong Refugees from Laos

14. Spanish and Portuguese Colonies

15. Stimulus Diffusion (trans cultural) • Takes part of an idea to create an innovative product • Computer keyboards, Cherokee writing system, gang culture fashions, Siberian reindeer herding.