TY - JOUR
T1 - Applying the communication theory of Diffusion of Innovations to economic sciences
T2 - a response to the ‘Using gossips to spread information’ experiments conducted by the 2019 Nobel Laureates
AU - Do, Do Kyun
AU - Kee, Kerk K.
AU - Dearing, James W.
N1 - Funding Information:
For 20 years, economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Kremer of Harvard University have pioneered a large-scale, field-experimental approach for demonstrating methods to alleviate poverty in some of the poorest regions of the world. Their work, conducted with teams of colleagues and on-the-ground practitioners in the United States and abroad, and funded by the National Science Foundation and other agencies, has addressed ways to improve education, health care, and microfinance at the level of poor communities. In 2019, the three professors shared the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for transforming the field of development economics (The Nobel Prize, ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, © 2020 National Communication Association.
PY - 2020/3/3
Y1 - 2020/3/3
N2 - Drs Abhijit Banergee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for their remarkable series of large-scale field experiments to lessen global poverty. The main theoretical framework that they employed was the diffusion of innovations research and practice paradigm (DOI) which has had a long presence in communication research dating back to the 1940s. Here, we reviewed the Nobel laureates’ article, ‘Using gossips to spread information: Theory and evidence from two randomized controlled trials,’ that is illustrative of how economists applied the communication theory of diffusion of innovations to their projects of social change. The present article poses questions and makes recommendations for similar future projects from a communication perspective.
AB - Drs Abhijit Banergee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for their remarkable series of large-scale field experiments to lessen global poverty. The main theoretical framework that they employed was the diffusion of innovations research and practice paradigm (DOI) which has had a long presence in communication research dating back to the 1940s. Here, we reviewed the Nobel laureates’ article, ‘Using gossips to spread information: Theory and evidence from two randomized controlled trials,’ that is illustrative of how economists applied the communication theory of diffusion of innovations to their projects of social change. The present article poses questions and makes recommendations for similar future projects from a communication perspective.
KW - Diffusion of innovations
KW - diffusion network
KW - economics
KW - global poverty reduction
KW - opinion leaders
KW - social network analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85082454783&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00909882.2020.1734226
DO - 10.1080/00909882.2020.1734226
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85082454783
VL - 48
SP - 157
EP - 165
JO - Journal of Applied Communication Research
JF - Journal of Applied Communication Research
SN - 0090-9882
IS - 2
ER -