Paul DiMaggio

Paul DiMaggio (born 1951) is a professor of sociology at Princeton University since 1992 and past chairman (1996-99) of the university's sociology department. He specializes in the study of nonprofit and cultural organizations, cultural conflict in the United States, and social implications of new digital technologies such as personal computers and the Internet.

Career

A graduate of Swarthmore College, DiMaggio earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard in 1979. He was the executive director of Yale's program on nonprofit organizations (1982-87), and through 1991 he was a professor in the sociology department at the university. He was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1984-85) and at the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1990). He also served on the Connecticut Commission on the Arts and on the board of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.

Sociology studies

DiMaggio's major works have been in the study of organizations and the formation of "high culture" in the U.S. His recent research explores social inequality in the Internet.

The world of organizations, DiMaggio and Walter Powell have argued, is heavily influenced by "institutional isomorphism": organizations adopt business practices not because they are efficient (per se), but because they furnish legitimacy in the eyes of outside stakeholders - lenders, government regulators, shareholders, etc. DiMaggio asserts that the need to maintain the confidence of poorly-informed outside parties means that organizations are less creative and innovative in their practices. DiMaggio also claims this pattern can be seen in nonprofit groups and government agencies that imitate the language and styles of the corporate world in order to appear more efficient.

In his cultural studies, DiMaggio's historical research documented the self-conscious creation of "high culture" in the late 19th-century America. DiMaggio argues that, unsettled by the weak class distinctions in growing industrial cities, local elites created a "sophisticated" culture (via the arts, universities, social clubs, and the like) that would separate commoners from those of high standing. DiMaggio says that "high culture" models developed by founders of museums and orchestras were then adopted by patrons of opera, theatre, and the dance.

DiMaggio's recent research considers the cultural advent of the Internet. He compares the emergence of the Internet with the rise of television in the 1950s. Television was introduced to American consumers in 1948, and within ten years 90% of households had TV. In contrast, Internet difusion (introduced on a large scale in 1994) seems to have stalled at approximately 60% of American households. DiMaggio believes that this difference is the result of the so-called digital divide - inequalities in Internet usage by race, income, and education level. DiMaggio maintains that these inequalities were not found in the adoption of TV in the 1950s, and suggests that differences in Internet usage among social groups will continue. This remains an open question, and some recent data suggest Internet usage is growing, with more than 70% of American adults reporting that they use the Internet.

Selected bibliography

• The Twenty-First Century Firm: Changing Economic Organization in International Perspective (editor), Princeton University Press 2001 ISBN 0691116318
• Race, Ethnicity, and Participation in the Arts with Francie Ostrower, Seven Locks Press 1992 ISBN 0929765036
• The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (editor with Walter Powell), University of Chicago Press 1991 ISBN 0226677095
• Managers of the Arts, Seven Locks Press 1988 ISBN 093202050X
• Nonprofit Enterprise in the Arts: Studies in Mission and Constraint (editor), Oxford University Press 1987 ISBN 0195040635

External links

• Princeton University webpage on Paul DiMaggio
• Getcited.org webpage on works by Paul DiMaggio