Wilbur Schramm
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-29-2017
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Abstract
The name of Wilbur Schramm, an American researcher in the 20th century (b. 1907–d. 1987), is often connected with the creation of the general field of communication studies in the United States and later globally. As university departments and institutes emerged in the United States and elsewhere and as the various communication media have become central for much of daily life as we know it, the origin of research and theory on communication has also grown. Communication as a field and a discipline grew within American academic/university structures. Its history as well as its standing with the traditional social sciences (anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology) emerged in Europe toward the end of the 19th century. In many ways Schramm was far from the founder of the field as the study of journalism and rhetoric or public address in the United States had long preceded his establishment of the first graduate program in communication research at the University of Illinois in 1948. But Schramm tried to generalize the idea of communication as a field of study that would merge mediated and interpersonal communication in his vision of the field. Whether he was personally responsible for the rapid growth of university study and massive research after mid-century in the United States and globally is not reasonable, but his published work and the various research institutes he founded certainly influenced subsequent growth of the communication field. He deserves study as someone who envisioned the future of communication study at a critical flexing point in its history.
Recommended Citation
McAnany, E. G. (2017). Wilbur Schramm. In P. Moy (Ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Communication. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0190
