Departmental Papers (ASC)
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
11-1999
Publication Source
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Volume
566
Issue
1
Start Page
144
Last Page
155
DOI
10.1177/000271629956600112
Abstract
This article is a call for volunteers to stand on the shoulders of Gabriel Tarde and Pitirim Sorokin, who dared to theorize the process of diffusion over a wide variety of disciplines. While all of the social sciences and humanities regularly produce case studies of diffusion, theorizing seems paralyzed. This paralysis stems from the ostensible incommensurability of diffusing items; their refusal to hold still in transit; the complexity of their interactions with the cultures, social structures, and media systems in which potential adopters are embedded; the difficulty of reconciling voluntary action and external imposition; and the lack of a disciplinary home.
Copyright/Permission Statement
The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol.566, 1999, © SAGE Publications, Inc. 1999 at the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science page: http://ann.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: < a href="http://online.sagepub.com/">http://online.sagepub.com/
Recommended Citation
Katz, E. (1999). Theorizing Diffusion: Tarde and Sorokin Revisited. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 566 (1), 144-155. https://doi.org/10.1177/000271629956600112
Date Posted: 19 April 2011