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hierarchical diffusion — English
A process whereby a tangible (tactile, physical, things that can be touched) or an intangible entity extends its spatial distribution or occurrence from a large, influential place to smaller, less important places and ultimately to every little place anywhere. A hierarchy is a ranking of items or places according to size, influence and popularity or even according to the frequency of occurrence of negative characteristics (or attributes) such as drug addiction or numbers of murders committed. New things tend to spread from large, influential places to small, far-off places. That means that it spreads from the top of the hierarchy to the bottom. A new fad (like wearing black nailpolish) or type of music may originate in New York City, but soon it would spread to other major cities in the USA and to London and then to every city and town and eventually to the smallest hamlets anywhere in the world. The use of cell phones in South Africa is an interesting example of hierarchical diffusion that forced major communication companies to extend their physical networks to outlying areas so that people could use cellphones not only in the cities, but even in rural areas and certain wilderness areas far from the beaten track. The diffusion of the popularity of the internet’s social networks like Facebook and Twitter did not happen hierarchically, but the diffusion of the physical satellite data reception installations did.
