THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS PARADIGM AS AN EXAMPLE OF SCIENTIFIC GROWTH

This article traces the emergence of the basic paradigm for early diff usion research created by two rural sociologists at Iowa State Univers ity, 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 dif fusion scholars. By the late 1960s, rural sociologists lost interest i n diffusion studies, not because it was ineffective scientifically, bu t because of lack of support for such study as a consequence of farm o verproduction and because most of the interesting research questions w ere though to be answered.