A recently published book, “Communication of Innovations, A Journey with Ev Rogers,” (Sage Publications, 2006) features a collection of 10 original essays that honors the intellectual legacy of UNM Professor Everett M. Rogers, a pioneering and distinguished teacher-scholar of diffusion of innovations, communication networks and social change.
Image: "Communication of Innovations, A Journey with Ev Rogers"
Well-known colleagues and contemporaries write about topics that piqued Rogers’ curiosity and areas where he made seminal and lasting contributions: diffusion of innovations; communication networks in diffusion; innovation generation and technology transfer; social cognitive and social diffusion theories; social marketing; communication and social change in non-Western contexts; strategic communication campaigns; and the entertainment-education communication strategy in health promotion.
The concluding chapter documents Rogers’ life journey from his modest farm boy beginnings in Iowa, through his distinguished academic career, to his final return to the farm.
Overall, this book demonstrates the diversity of Rogers’ contributions to the fields of communication science, marketing, organizational change, sociology, and social psychology, and will serve as a starting point for future scholarship and practice.
Rogers taught at six American universities and six universities in Europe, Latin America and the Far East. He came to the University of New Mexico in 1993 as the journalism department chair where he served until 1997.
During his tenure, he developed a new doctoral program for intercultural communication. In 2002, Rogers was selected the university’s 47th Annual Research Lecturer – the highest honor UNM bestows on its faculty. He continued to teach at UNM until the fall of 2004 when illness forced his retirement. He died on Oct. 31, 2004 at the age of 73.