Theorizing in Development Communication

1. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COMMUNICATION FIELD
Wilbur Schramm
and the
Establishment of Communication Study
by
Gemma B. Dumansi
2015-66007
College of Development Communication
University of the Philippines Los Banos

2. THE FOREFATHERS OF COMMUNICATION STUDY IN AMERICA
1. HAROLD LASSWELL :STRUCTURE &
FUNCTION OF COMMUNICATION IN SOCIETY
(SURVEILLANCE, CORRELATION,
SOCIALIZATION
2. PAUL LAZARSFELD: COMMUNICATION
RESEARCH (FROM MARKET RESEARCH TO
MEDIA EFFECTS TO SOCIAL
REINFORCEMENT

3. THE FOREFATHERS OF COMMUNICATION STUDY IN AMERICA
3. KURT LEWIN: DEEPER UNDERSTANDING
TO HUMAN COMMUNICATION –
COMMUNICATION IN GROUPS
4. CARL HOVLAND: DIRECTED “YALE
COMMUNICATION AND ATTITUDE CHANGE
PROGRAM

4. WILBUR SCHRAMM: THE FOUNDER OF COMMUNICATION STUDY
 W. Schramm possessed a
unique set of personal
qualities and interpersonal
skills to found communication
study.
 Without a founder, there
would be no new field, and
therefore no forefathers to
recall
 He established
communication study at the
end of WWII, a period when
U.S. universities were
beginning a tremendous
expansion, often doubling or
even tripling their student
enrollments.

5. WASHINGTON AT WAR:
 January 1942 – volunteered to work under Office
of Facts Figures (OFF), a central propaganda
agency for the US government.
 he drafted Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “fireside
chats” that were broadcast by radio to the American
people.
 he’s responsible for liason work with U.S. universities
encouraging them to aid in the war pains.
 Ralf O. Nafziger, a journalism Prof. from University
of Minnesota, was also recruited to the OFF when the
war broke out. – occasionally meet with W. Schramm.

6. SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENTISTS WHOM W. SCHRAMM
COLLABORATED WITH…..
1. George Stoddard –his old friend and became President of
the University of Illinois.
2. Rensis Likert – a methodologist who conducted survey
research on public attitudes toward the war (an extension
of his Farm Survey work for U.S Department of Agriculture)
3. Harold Lasswell - OFF consultant
4. Ralph Casey – collaborated with Lasswell on analyses of
propaganda and public opinion (see Rogers & Caffee,
1994, pp.17-20 on Casey and Schramm)
- Casey was a director of the journalism school at the
University of Minnesota.

7. SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENTISTS WHOM W. SCHRAMM
COLLABORATED WITH…..
5. Ernerst R. Hilgard (Jack)- a Psychologist of
Learning from Stanford University.
6. Paul Lazarsfeld – OFF consultant and also a
consultant to Samuel Stouffer’s Research Branch
in the US Army’s Information and Education
Division in Pentagon.
 Conduct surveys of the morale, racial attitudes, and
other attitudes of US troops
 Carry out experiments on the effects of military training
films
Carl Hovland (on leave from Yale University)
directed this experimental research.

8. MEAD, HILGARD, LIKERT & SCHRAMM
 Margaret Mead – a political scientist and famous
anthropologist, directed a research program on nutrition
behavior for the National Research Council
 Mead, Hilgard, Likert & Schramm were part of a group
that met monthly in a Washington Hotel for dinner and
had discussions about interdisciplinary social science
work (Schramm chaired these meetings).
During WWII, Washington was the place for social
scientist. The war effort demanded an interdisciplinary
approach to problems, often related to communication
study because in so many ways, it was seen as “a war of
words”.

9. CONTRIBUTIONS OF WWII TO COMMUNICATION STUDY..
 Communication was viewed as the basic tool
for mobilization of the American people to
volunteer, conserve, and in other ways aid in
concentrating the nation’s resources on winning
the war.
 WWII created the conditions for the founding of
the communication field.
W. Shramm decided to return to Iowa after less
than 2 years at OFF / OWI (office of War
Information)/ USIA (U.S. Information Agency)

10.  University of Iowa (1934-1947)
 University of Illinois (1947-1955)
 Stanford University (1955-1973)
After Retirement:
 University of Hawaii – Manoa Campus (1973-1978)
 Chinese University of Hongkong (Aw Boon Haw Prof.
1year)
 University of Michigan (Guest Scholar – 1 Term)
SHRAMM’S COMMUNICATION STUDY AT THREE MAJOR
RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES…

11. UNIVERSITY OF IOWA: SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
 In 1943, the School of Journalism in Iowa was mainly
providing vocational type of higher education preparing
undergraduate students to enter jobs as newspaper
reporters.
 This picture of a school of journalism as professional (rather
than scholarly) in orientation characterized not only in Iowa
but almost all several hundred journalism programs except:
University of Wisconsin in Madison, where an unusually
brand of journalism education had been pioneered by William
G. “Daddy” Bleyer (1873-1935), who started a course in
journalism in 1904.
Bleyer placed emphasis on research as part of
education for journalism. If schools of journalism were to guide
rather than merely follow professional practice, he considered
that social science could help by answering practical questions
about newsworthiness, editing decisions, & determinants of

12. BLEYER & HIS 2 DISCIPLES
 Daddy Bleyer at University of Wiscosin
 he instituted journalism minor in social science PhD
student
Undergrad journalism majors took courses in
sociology, polsci, & econ as a means of understanding
the society on which they were to report.
He provided other Universities with journalism
professors who saw research as a natural part of their
carrier responsibilities.
Benefited Schramm’s germinating idea of a new field
of communication study.
 Ralph Casey & Ralph Nafziger at University of
Minnesota
 made similar changes in the J-School of minnesota
as what Schramm is doing at Iowa.

13. UNIVERSITY OF IOWA: SCHRAMM IN ACTION
1. Schramm: Director of the School of Journalism
2. Submitted a plan: Broadening the journalism major
from how-to-do-it journalism classes; the founding of
a bureau of newspaper readership (as component of
School of Journalism) and social science courses:
sociology, psychology, economics, etc.
3. Established: PhD program in mass communication
(interdisciplinary). Courses: communication theory,
research methods, public opinion, propaganda
analysis, other social scientific topics, supported by
outside courses in psychology, sociology,
economics, and political science

14. 4. established Research Institute at Iowa
patterned after Lazarsfeld’s Office of Radio
Research @ Columbia University was
established. Funding:
Cedar Rapids radio station- to know how
large their audience was and who was in it.
Young and Rubicam advertising agency
(N.Y)- through its research director Dr.
George “Ted” Gallup (one of Iowa’s 1st
Journ students)

15. MASS COMMUNICATION AT ILLINOIS
Wilbur Schramm:
 Director of the Institute of Communication
Research
 Professor of Communication
 In charge of the University of Illinois Press,
the radio and television stations, veterans
affairs, a conference center, and a host of
other activities.
 The Communication Czar
 The Duke of Allerton

16. THE INSTITUTE OF COMMUNICATION RESEARCH
 It was funded with 15 faculty positions
 A dozen of new doctoral students were
admitted each term
 doctoral students took courses in social
science departments, plus core courses in
communication at the institute.
 1st graduate of the doctoral program went
out to start similar units at other universities
eager to build Com study, such as Michigan
State.

17. SCHRAMM @ ILLINOIS:
 Organized a conference at Allerton Park and
funded by Rockefeller Foundation
 Wrote the 1st book in Com study (1948)
“Communication in Modern Society” –
collection of conference papers
 2nd book “Mass Communications”
(1949.1960) – collection of articles and
excepts which he dedicated this influenial
volume to Lazarsfeld, Lasswell, and Hovland
for bringing social science to Communication
field.

18.  “Process and Effects of Mass Communication”
(1954) - Schramm’s most important book,
originally a US Information Agency training
manual composed of papers by various
scholars. Published: University of Illinois Press
 Schramm arranged for Press to publish “The
Mathematical Theory of Communication” by
Claude E. Shnnon w/ explanatory paper by
Warren Weaver (1949) – became basis for
Information Theory which Schramm
incorporated to communication study in 1955 so
as with his doctoral students David K. Berlo
(1960) and Wilson Taylor (1953) in their

19. THE COLD WAR…
 During the Illinois years another war, this time in
Korea, played a key role in Schramm’s
intellectual evolution.
 USIA (1951) invited Schramm to conduct a
Survey of public opinion in Seoul that examined
the appeal that Communism held during the
invasions from North Korea; the city changed
hands several times in a period of months
 Korea project marked the beginning o
Schramm’s role as an adviser to other nations’
governments an his interest in comparisons
between Western and Soviet-Communist
theories of the press (Schramm, 1956).

20. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF COMMUNICATION
 Mass Communication programs around US
began in the late 1950s offering courses in
comparative press systems and in international
communication flows, and a decade later on the
role of communication in development.
(Schramm produced many standard readings
for these courses and led the way in conducting
research on these topics)
 Illinois was thus the place where
communication research in the programmatic
sense was first established, although its
roots could be traced to Schramm at Iowa
and even Bleyer at Wisconsin.

21. STANFORD AS THE SEED INSTITUTION FOR
COMMUNICATION STUDY….
 Schramm was appointed at the Department of
Journalism (small and professional in orientation)
 Chick Bush, director of the Institute for
Communication Research was pushing journalism
at Stanford towards a social science perspective
and he counted on Schramm to go in that direction
(Schramm replaced him as director after 2 yrs)
 Jack Hilgard, Dean of Stanford’s Graduate School,
controlled some $50,000/year of special monies
which provided the funding for Schramm’s initial
appointment to strengthen the social sciences at
Stanford.

22.  Under Schramm, the Institute for
Communication Research always seemed
abundant in research funds - Ford
Foundation, a grant that paid half of his
salary for 4 yrs and US Agency for
International Development for research and
training in development communication.
 Schramm’s program at Stanford became
famous for doctoral students that almost
every traditional University wanted to hire a
“Stanford type” – well trained in quantitative
methods like Wayne Danielson & Maxwell
McCombs

23. Wayne Danielson (born 1929)
 BA degree in journalism(1952) @ University of Iowa,
MA degree @ Stanford (1953), enrolled Stanford’s
interdisciplinary doctoral program in communication
(1954) – also enrolled courses in Psychology on
Hilgard Learning Theory, in Social Psychology from
Leon Festinger and in Statistics from Quinn McNemar
 Received his PhD in Mass Communication Research
@ Stanford (1957) and taught 1yr at University of
Wisconsin, then moved to University of North
Carolina for 10yrs (became Dean of School of
Journalism)
 University of Texas – Austin (1969-1979), Dean,
College of Communication.
 Stepped down as Dean, and continued as professor
of journalism and Computer Science in Texas.

24. Maxwell E. McCombs (born 1938)
 BA in Tulane University
 MA in Stanford University – Bush gave him
statistical methods, learning theory, content
analysis, and communication theory
 Finished PhD in Communication at Stanford
University(1966)
 Taught Journalism at UCLA then took faculty
position at North Carolina until 1973.
 Faculty at Syracuse Univ. and the at the
University of Texas where he chaired Dep’t of
Journalism (1986-1991)

25. HOW SCHRAMM WORKED…
 The careers of Danielson (principally in
administration) and McCombs (mainly in
research and doctoral education) illustrate the
path of the model of Schramm protégé. They
applied quantitative methods and social science
theories to real-world problems.
Schramm often spoke of both of them with
an obvious pride of authorship.
 Schramm’s social views evolved throughout his
life, from a traditional Christian white American
ethnocentrism to an ecumenical and respectful
collaborator with people from around the world.

26. Schramm was a tireless worker:
 he had put together funding, participants, and a
program for a summerlong conference n
communication and development which was held in
Honolulu
 made his greatest academic contribution as
synthesizer of other people’s work. (converts other
people’s findings into useful generalization).
 He helped found the Indian Institute for Mass
Communication in Delhi, andEast-West
Communication Institute at the University of Hawaii
 He promoted communication study not only in united
States but around the world

27. SCHRAMM’S MODEL
 Feedback loop model
 Field Experience

28. REFERENCES:
 Rogers, Everett M (1997). A History of
Communication Study: A Biographical
Approach. The Free Press. New York
 Schramm, Wilbur L. 1997. The Beginnings of
Communication Study in America: A Memoir.
SAGE Publications, Inc. California