Everett Rogers
Encyclopedia
Everett M. Rogers was a communication
scholar, sociologist, writer, and teacher. He is best known for originating the diffusion of innovations
theory and for introducing the term early adopter.
Rogers was born on his family's Pinehurst Farm in Carroll
, Iowa
, in 1931. His father loved electromechanical farm innovations,
but was highly reluctant to utilize biological–chemical innovations, so he resisted
adopting the new hybrid seed corn, even though it yielded 25% more crop and
was resistant to drought. During the Iowa drought of 1936, while the hybrid seed
corn stood tall on the neighbor’s farm, the crop on the Rogers’ farm wilted. Rogers’ father was finally convinced.
Rogers had no plans to attend university until a school teacher drove him and some classmates to Ames
to visit Iowa State University
. Rogers decided to pursue a degree in agriculture there. He then served in the Korean War for two years. He returned to Iowa State University to earn a Ph.D. in sociology and statistics in 1957.
was published, Rogers was an assistant professor of rural sociology at Ohio State University. He was only 30 years old but was becoming a world-renowned academic figure. In the mid-2000s, The Diffusion of Innovations became the second-most-cited book in the social sciences. (Arvind Singhal: Introducing Professor Everett M. Rogers, 47th Annual Research Lecturer, University of New Mexico)http://www.unm.edu/%7ecjdept/department/news1.html. The fifth edition (2003, with Nancy Singer Olaguera) addresses the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas.
Rogers proposes that adopters of any new innovation
or idea can be categorized as innovators (2.5%), early adopters (13.5%), early majority (34%), late majority (34%) and laggards (16%), based on the mathematically based Bell curve
. These categories, based on standard deviations from the mean of the normal curve, provide a common language for innovation researchers. Each adopter's willingness and ability to adopt an innovation depends on their awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. People can fall into different categories for different innovations—a farmer might be an early adopter of mechanical innovations, but a late majority adopter of biological innovations or VCRs.
When graphed, the rate of adoption formed what came to typify the Diffusion of Innovations model, an “s-shaped curve.” (S curve
) The graph essentially shows a cumulative percentage of adopters over time – slow at the start, more rapid as adoption increases, then leveling off until only a small percentage of laggards have not adopted. [Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations 1983]
His research and work became widely accepted in communications
and technology adoption studies, and also found its way into a variety of other social science studies. Geoffrey Moore
's Crossing the Chasm
drew from Rogers in explaining how and why technology companies succeed. Rogers was also able to relate his communications research to practical health problems, including hygiene
, family planning
, cancer prevention, and drunk driving.
he co-wrote Entertainment Education: A Communication Strategy for Social Change.
To commemorate his contributions to the field, the University of Southern California
Norman Lear Center
established the Everett M. Rogers Award for Achievement in Entertainment-Education, which recognizes outstanding practice or research in the field of entertainment education. http://www.learcenter.org/html/projects/?cm=hhs/Ev_Rogers_Award
. He was Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UNM.
Rogers suffered from kidney disease and retired from UNM in the summer of 2004. He died just a few months later, survived by his wife, Dr. Corinne Shefner-Rogers, and two sons: David Rogers and Everett King.
Communication studies
Communication Studies is an academic field that deals with processes of communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols over distances in space and time. Hence, communication studies encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation to speeches to mass...
scholar, sociologist, writer, and teacher. He is best known for originating the diffusion of innovations
Diffusion of innovations
Diffusion of Innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. Everett Rogers, a professor of rural sociology, popularized the theory in his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations...
theory and for introducing the term early adopter.
Rogers was born on his family's Pinehurst Farm in Carroll
Carroll, Iowa
-2010 census:The 2010 census recorded a population of 10,103 in the city, with a population density of . There were 4,698 housing units, of which 4,357 were occupied....
, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
, in 1931. His father loved electromechanical farm innovations,
but was highly reluctant to utilize biological–chemical innovations, so he resisted
adopting the new hybrid seed corn, even though it yielded 25% more crop and
was resistant to drought. During the Iowa drought of 1936, while the hybrid seed
corn stood tall on the neighbor’s farm, the crop on the Rogers’ farm wilted. Rogers’ father was finally convinced.
Rogers had no plans to attend university until a school teacher drove him and some classmates to Ames
Ames, Iowa
Ames is a city located in the central part of the U.S. state of Iowa in Story County, and approximately north of Des Moines. The U.S. Census Bureau designates that Ames, Iowa metropolitan statistical area as encompassing all of Story County, and which, when combined with the Boone, Iowa...
to visit Iowa State University
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
. Rogers decided to pursue a degree in agriculture there. He then served in the Korean War for two years. He returned to Iowa State University to earn a Ph.D. in sociology and statistics in 1957.
Diffusion of Innovations
When the first edition (1962) of Diffusion of InnovationsDiffusion of innovations
Diffusion of Innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. Everett Rogers, a professor of rural sociology, popularized the theory in his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations...
was published, Rogers was an assistant professor of rural sociology at Ohio State University. He was only 30 years old but was becoming a world-renowned academic figure. In the mid-2000s, The Diffusion of Innovations became the second-most-cited book in the social sciences. (Arvind Singhal: Introducing Professor Everett M. Rogers, 47th Annual Research Lecturer, University of New Mexico)http://www.unm.edu/%7ecjdept/department/news1.html. The fifth edition (2003, with Nancy Singer Olaguera) addresses the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas.
Rogers proposes that adopters of any new innovation
Innovation
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...
or idea can be categorized as innovators (2.5%), early adopters (13.5%), early majority (34%), late majority (34%) and laggards (16%), based on the mathematically based Bell curve
Bell curve
Bell curve can refer to:* A Gaussian function, a specific kind of function whose graph is a bell-shaped curve* Normal distribution, whose density function is a Gaussian function...
. These categories, based on standard deviations from the mean of the normal curve, provide a common language for innovation researchers. Each adopter's willingness and ability to adopt an innovation depends on their awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. People can fall into different categories for different innovations—a farmer might be an early adopter of mechanical innovations, but a late majority adopter of biological innovations or VCRs.
When graphed, the rate of adoption formed what came to typify the Diffusion of Innovations model, an “s-shaped curve.” (S curve
Logistic function
A logistic function or logistic curve is a common sigmoid curve, given its name in 1844 or 1845 by Pierre François Verhulst who studied it in relation to population growth. It can model the "S-shaped" curve of growth of some population P...
) The graph essentially shows a cumulative percentage of adopters over time – slow at the start, more rapid as adoption increases, then leveling off until only a small percentage of laggards have not adopted. [Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations 1983]
His research and work became widely accepted in communications
Communication studies
Communication Studies is an academic field that deals with processes of communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols over distances in space and time. Hence, communication studies encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation to speeches to mass...
and technology adoption studies, and also found its way into a variety of other social science studies. Geoffrey Moore
Geoffrey Moore
Geoffrey Moore is a Silicon Valley based high technology consultant, venture partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures and author.His books are derived from his Silicon Valley consulting work at The McKenna Group and The Chasm Group , and earlier work by Everett Rogers on adopter categories and diffusion...
's Crossing the Chasm
Crossing the Chasm
Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers or simply Crossing the Chasm , is a marketing book by Geoffrey A. Moore that focuses on the specifics of marketing high tech products during the early start up period...
drew from Rogers in explaining how and why technology companies succeed. Rogers was also able to relate his communications research to practical health problems, including hygiene
Hygiene
Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...
, family planning
Family planning
Family planning is the planning of when to have children, and the use of birth control and other techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques commonly used include sexuality education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and...
, cancer prevention, and drunk driving.
Entertainment Education
In the early 1990s Rogers turned his attention to the field of Entertainment-Education. With funding from Population Communications Internationalhttp://www.population.org/ he evaluated a radio drama designed to improve public health in Tanzania called Twende na Wakati (Let’s Go With the Times). http://www.learcenter.org/pdf/RogersCommentaries.pdf With Arvind Singhal of Ohio UniversityOhio University
Ohio University is a public university located in the Midwestern United States in Athens, Ohio, situated on an campus...
he co-wrote Entertainment Education: A Communication Strategy for Social Change.
To commemorate his contributions to the field, the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
Norman Lear Center
Norman Lear Center
Based at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, the Norman Lear Center is a multi-disciplinary research and public policy center exploring implications of the convergence of entertainment, commerce, and society...
established the Everett M. Rogers Award for Achievement in Entertainment-Education, which recognizes outstanding practice or research in the field of entertainment education. http://www.learcenter.org/html/projects/?cm=hhs/Ev_Rogers_Award
Later life
In 1995, Rogers moved to the University of New Mexico, having become fond of Albuquerque while stationed at an airbase during the Korean War. He helped UNM launch a doctoral program in communicationCommunication studies
Communication Studies is an academic field that deals with processes of communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols over distances in space and time. Hence, communication studies encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation to speeches to mass...
. He was Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UNM.
Rogers suffered from kidney disease and retired from UNM in the summer of 2004. He died just a few months later, survived by his wife, Dr. Corinne Shefner-Rogers, and two sons: David Rogers and Everett King.
Publications
- Rogers, E. M. (1960). Social change in rural society: A textbook in rural sociology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
- Rogers, E. M. (1962). Diffusion of innovations. New York: Free Press.
- Rogers, E. M. (1969). Modernization among peasants: The impact of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
- Rogers, E. M. (1973). Communication strategies for family planning. New York: Free Press.
- Rogers, E. M. (Ed.). (1976). Communication and development: Critical perspectives. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
- Rogers, E. M. (1983). Diffusion of innovations (3rd ed.). New York: Free Press.
- Rogers, E. M. (1986). Communication technology: The new media in society. New York: Free Press.
- Rogers, E. M. (1994). A history of communication study: A biographical approach. New York: Free Press.
- Rogers, E. M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations (4th ed.). New York: Free Press.
- Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York: Free Press.
- Rogers, E. M. (2008). The fourteenth paw: Growing up on an Iowa farm in the 1930s—A memoir. Singapore: Asian Media Information and Communication Center.
- Rogers, E. M., & Agarwala-Rogers, R. (1976). Communication in organizations. New York: Free Press.
- Rogers, E. M., & Balle, F. (Eds.). (1985). The media revolution in America and Western Europe. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
- Rogers, E. M., & Bartlit, N. R. (2005). Silent voices of World War II: When sons of the Land of Enchantment met sons of the Land of the Rising Sun. Santa Fe, NM: Sunstone Press.
- Rogers, E. M., & Burdge, R. J. (1972). Social change in rural societies (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
- Rogers, E. M., Burdge, R. J., Korshing, P. F., & Donnermeyer, J. F. (1988). Social change in rural societies: An introduction to rural sociology (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
- Rogers, E. M., & Chaffee, S. H. (1994). Communication and journalism from “Daddy” Bleyer to Wilbur Schramm: A palimpsest (Journalism Monographs, No. 148). Columbia, SC: Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
- Rogers, E. M., Dearing, J. W., & Chang, S. (1991). AIDS in the 1980s: The agenda-setting process for a public issue (Journalism Monographs, No. 126). Columbia, SC: Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
- Rogers, E. M., & Kincaid, D. L. (1981). Communication networks: Toward a new paradigm for research. New York: Free Press.
- Rogers, E. M., & Larsen, J. K. (1984). Silicon Valley fever: Growth of high-technology culture. New York: Basic Books.
- Rogers, E. M., & Shoemaker, F. F. (1971). Communication of innovations: A cross-cultural approach (2nd ed. of Diffusion of innovations). New York: Free Press.
- Rogers, E. M., & Solomon, D. S. (1975). Traditional midwives as family planning communicators in Asia. Honolulu, HI: East-West Communication Institute.
- Rogers, E. M., & Steinfatt, T. M. (1999). Intercultural communication. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
- Backer, T. E., Rogers, E. M., & Sopory, P. (1992). Designing health communication campaigns: What works? Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
- Backer, T. E., & Rogers, E. M. (Eds.). (1993). Organizational aspects of health communication campaigns: What works? Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
- Dearing, J. W., & Rogers, E. M. (1996). Agenda-setting. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
- Gibson, D. V., & Rogers, E. M. (1994). R&D collaboration on trial: The microelectronics and computer technology corporation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
- Singhal, A., Cody, M. J., Rogers, E. M., & Sabido, M. (Eds.). (2004). Entertainment-education and social change: History, research, and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Singhal, A., & Dearing, J. W. (Eds.). (2006). Communication of innovations: A journey with Ev Rogers. New Delhi: Sage.
- Singhal, A., & Rogers, E. M. (1999). Entertainment education: A communication strategy for social change. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Singhal, A., & Rogers, E. M. (2001). India's communication revolution: From bullock carts to cyber marts. New Delhi: Sage.
- Singhal, A., & Rogers, E. M. (2003). Combating AIDS: Communication strategies in action. New Delhi: Sage.
- Williams, F., Rice, R. E., & Rogers, E. M. (1988). Research methods and the new media. New York: Free Press.
See also
- Communication SciencesCommunication SciencesCommunication sciences refers to the schools of scientific research of human communication. This perspective follows the logical positivist tradition of inquiry; most modern communication science falls into a tradition of post-positivism. Thus, communication scientists believe that there is an...
- Communication StudiesCommunication studiesCommunication Studies is an academic field that deals with processes of communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols over distances in space and time. Hence, communication studies encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation to speeches to mass...
- Communication TheoryCommunication theoryCommunication theory is a field of information and mathematics that studies the technical process of information and the human process of human communication.- History :- Origins :...
- Development CommunicationDevelopment communicationDevelopment Communication, has been alternatively defined as a type of marketing and public opinion research that is used specifically to develop effective communication or as the use of communication to promote social development...
- Diffusion of InnovationsDiffusion of innovationsDiffusion of Innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. Everett Rogers, a professor of rural sociology, popularized the theory in his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations...
- D. Lawrence KincaidD. Lawrence KincaidD. Lawrence Kincaid is best known among communication theorists as the proponent of the convergence model of communication, a nonlinear model of communication wherein two communicators strive to reach "mutual understanding." In recent years this model has been particularly popular among proponents...
- Mass CommunicationMass communicationMass communication is the term used to describe the academic study of the various means by which individuals and entities relay information through mass media to large segments of the population at the same time...
- Mass MediaMass mediaMass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
- Technology AdoptionTechnology Adoption LifeCycleThe technology adoption lifecycle is a sociological model developed by Joe M. Bohlen, George M. Beal and Everett M. Rogers at Iowa State University, building on earlier research conducted there by Neal C. Gross and Bryce Ryan...
- Wilbur SchrammWilbur SchrammWilbur Lang Schramm is sometimes called the "father of communication studies," and had a great influence on the development of communication research in the United States, and the establishing of departments of communication studies in US universities.Schramm was born in Marietta, Ohio...