ABSTRACT
Diffusion theory, developed and explained by communications scholar Everett Rogers, suggests that there is a structure to the way innovations spread. He did his original work with corn seeds and then extended his analysis to other phenomena. This chapter examines diffusion theory in a general way to deal with bagels. The bagel is an innovation, a new object. Bagels are round yeast rolls that conventionally do not use eggs, that usually are formed by hand with a hole in their centers, and that use malt rather than sugar. They are boiled for several minutes in water that may have certain spices or other ingredients added, and then are baked. Bagels offer an interesting example of the way new products-in this case, a three inch yeast roll that is boiled then baked, shaped like a donut-spread from their place of origin to other places where, over the course of time, certain innovations in the original nature of bagels were created.
