The Importance of Personal Influence in the Adoption of Technological Changes
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ments in the postwar period have been in the direction indicated. While the change is most noticeable in superficial forms, there is some evidence that it already has had some effect on the underlying institutional complex. Some indications of such changes are: 1. The lively and many-sided airing of community issues by the local press. 2. Lively expression of citizen opinion through letters to the editor, resolutions, and, where appropriate, protest meetings. 3. A relatively large nucleus of concerned civic leaders who are dissatisfied with civic participation as it is and who see the need for a greater sharing of policy-making responsibility in community matters, both governmental and nongovernmental. 4. Free expression of opinion and comparative freedom from a sense of exaggerated subordination to the opinion of "experts" and "officials" on the part of many youths. 5. The lively efforts of the parents councils, which within the limitations of their formal set-up, have become one of the most vocal and effective community groups. 6. The at least partial success of the various citizens councils in Baden-Wuirttemberg in surviving the withdrawal of American support without becoming dependent for funds on the state. Although none of these developments is immune from the threefold complex and although in some ways they tend to reinforce it, they are not without their influence on it, particularly over a period of time. Thus, even though many concerned civic leaders insist privately that democracy at the community level in Stuttgart is merely a matter of empty forms, there are some slight indications of broader civic participation. Given time, and barring a war, or a national political impasse, or a serious economic depression, they may possibly gather strength as over against the tremendous inertia of the threefold complex.