How innovations in communications technology diffuse in urban areas: Problems and prospects in diffusion research (Louisiana)

This project describes and models the diffusion of cable television service in two of Louisiana's largest urban parishes, Orleans and Jefferson. The study of cable television is important because the cable network not only provides news and information, but also telecommunications services to its subscribers. Access to information via a highspeed connection to the Internet has become a salient political issue. Moreover, innovations in formerly disparate technologies have rendered cable's electronic network infrastructure a major competitor in providing new Information Superhighway services. The cable television industry competes with the incumbent telephone industry for present and future market share.; Despite the renowned success of broadcast television, the most rapidly diffused innovation of the twentieth century with at least one set in every household, the penetration rate of cable television service hovers at around 70%, nation wide. Diffusion agents (stakeholders), the Federal Communications Commission, state Public Service Commissioners, and telecommunications system operators seek additional information on cable's adopters and rejecters. Stakeholders seek additional information on the subscriber base in order that they may seek and identify new subscribers. Other stakeholders must address the issue of the information ‘haves’ vs. ‘have nots’ with respect to the digital divide. The bottom line is that both cable and telephone networks require investment in system upgrades to provide ubiquitous highspeed services. The reality is that cable and telephone must make money. The question is ‘if you build it, will they come’.; Therefore, within this context this research identifies whether there is a spatial pattern of cable television service diffusion. It also determines whether these diffusion patterns have quantifiable properties that conform to theoretical predictions about the diffusion of innovations as a spatial diffusion. My theoretical predictions and methodologies come from the work of Thorsten Hägerstrand. My dissertation uses the benefits of modern computer technology not available to Hägerstrand when composing his dissertation at Lund University in 1953. A final point is that this dissertation is a departure from traditional methods of analyzing mass communications research issues thereby, fueling the dichotomy of survey research vs. census-based methodologies.