According to Rogers (1996), diffusion theory became more widely
accepted after James S. Coleman, Elihu Katz, and Herbert Menzel conducted a study on the diffusion of tetracycline, a new medical drug, in 1966. The Pfizer drug company invented this successful
new drug and wanted to investigate the effectiveness of their tetracycline advertisements, which were placed in medical journals. The company asked three professors at Columbia University to
find out how physicians adopted the new innovation and how mass communication influenced this adoption process. They conducted a survey to gather accurate and reliable data. Different with
previous diffusion research that relied on respondents’ recall of how they adopted new technology, this study gathered data both from physicians' responses and pharmacies' prescription. In
addition to this, Coleman et al. (1966) asked their respondents to list their interpersonal connections in order to investigate the effect of interpersonal network links with the new drug
adoption. The result shows that the percentage of adoption of the new drug followed an S-shaped curve, but that the rate of tetracycline adoption was faster than the rate of other innovations
adoption. The researchers also found that doctors who are cosmopolite were likely to adopt the new drug. One of the most important findings was that doctors who had more interpersonal networks
adopted the new medical drug more quickly than those that did not. This meant that interpersonal communication channels with peers had a strong influence on the adoption process. Rogers (1996)
noted that this Columbia University study is one of the most influential diffusion studies in showing that the diffusion
of an innovation is essentially a social process that occurs through interpersonal networks
(p. 419). In fact, Rogers (1996) mentioned that even though the study
of Ryan and Gross became a milestone in diffusion paradigm, they did not measure the interpersonal network links among farmers. In this case, the Columbia University Drug Study made a
contribution to identify the importance of social networks in the diffusion process.
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