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American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 50, No. 7, 958-969 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0002764206298321

The Symbolic Dimension of Innovation Processes

Nicola Cavalli

University of Milan–Bicocca, Italy

The sociology of technology and the sociology of science still make little use of findings in rhetorical and linguistic fields. This article analyzes the conditions under which an invention might become an innovation, paying particular attention to the symbolic level. The article, thus, analyzes the role of communication in the social process of innovation and proposes to use the concepts of discourse community and communicative genre to tackle the symbolic dimension of innovation processes, applying them to the case of e-books, taken as an invention that has not yet become a true social innovation. A textual analysis, together with the discussion of the results of two empirical studies, is proposed to analyze the social, linguistic, and communicative aspects of the innovation process.

Key Words: sociology of technology • sociology of science • innovation • discourse community • genre theory


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