Factors for diffusion of autonomous vehicles technology: text mining of online news

Abstract

Autonomous vehicles technology is in prominent development and is already widespread in most popular media. Therefore, it is important to understand how this diffusion is happening and how it can impact the development of technology. This study aims to understand which factors contribute to the diffusion of autonomous vehicles (AVs) through primary research sourcing online media data. Based on Rogers (1995), 11,017 online news articles were classified and analysed using software-assisted text mining. Results point to promotion efforts, observability, and relative advantage as the most critical among a cluster list of 28 factors. This study contributes to the literature by identifying and describing the aspects of playing a role in the AV technologies diffusion.