The Origins and Development of the Diffusion of Innovations Paradigm as an Example of Scientific Growth

1995/03/01 by Thomas W. Valente, Everett M. Rogers · 4 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Diffusion #Diffusion of innovations #Discipline #Diverse Educational Innovations Studies #Organic Food and Agriculture #Perspective (graphical) #Social science #Sociological imagination #Sociology #Variety (cybernetics)

paper · doi:10.1177/1075547095016003002

openalex publication_date 1995/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

This article traces the emergence of the basic paradigm for early diffusion research created by two rural sociologists at Iowa State University, Bryce Ryan and Neal C. Gross. The diffusion paradigm spread to an invisible college of midwestern rural sociological researchers in the 1950s and 1960s, and then to a larger, interdisciplinary field of diffusion scholars. By the late 1960s, rural sociologists lost interest in diffusion studies, not because it was ineffective scientifically, but because of lack of support for such study as a consequence of farm overproduction and because most of the interesting research questions were thought to be answered.

Citations

• Hybrid Corn: An Exploration in the Economics of Technological Change
• The development of a scientific specialty: The phage group and the origins of molecular biology
• Scholarly communication and bibliometrics
• The Importance of Personal Influence in the Adoption of Technological Changes
• Traditions of Research on the Diffusion of Innovation
• The Curve of Culture Diffusion Rate

Cited by

• Integrating Models of Diffusion of Innovations: A Conceptual Framework
• Social network thresholds in the diffusion of innovations
• Theoretical framework and methods for the analysis of the adoption-diffusion of innovations in agriculture: a bibliometric review
• Diffusion of innovations [wikipedia]