Wilbur Schramm: a biography of this pioneer in communication studies.

A summary of the life of Wilbur Schramm, one of the most outstanding researchers in communication.

Communication studies have had several references in recent times, and Schramm has been one of the most important.

In the following we will review his life through a biography of Wilbur Schrammto know the most important details about his life and career. We will discover which have been the most valuable contributions he made during his years dedicated to communication and what has been the impact of these contributions.

Brief biography of Wilbur Schramm

Wilbur Lang Schramm, or simply Wilbur Schramm, was born in 1907 in the city of Marietta, in the state of Ohio, United States.United States. His family descended from former German emigrants. A love of music reigned in their home, as all members of the family unit were skilled in this art. Arch Schramm, Wilbur's father, was an expert violinist, as well as a lawyer.

Louise, his mother, played the piano. It was therefore not surprising that Wilbur Schramm also had an interest in this discipline, and soon became interested in the flute. One of the events that would mark the life of this child was a seemingly routine operation in which his tonsils were removed. However, this operation triggered a stuttering that would stay with him forever.

He was five years old when he began to stutter; this condition caused him great discomfort.. From then on, he tried to avoid speaking in public whenever possible. So much so, that when he graduated, instead of giving a speech, like the rest of his classmates, he preferred to play a piece of music with his flute.

Formative years

Wilbur Schramm began a career in political science at the prestigious institution of Marietta College. Not only that, but he he graduated summa cum laude, under the excellence awarded by the Phi Beta Kappa society.. And, all while combining his studies with a job as a journalist for The Marietta Daily Herald. This time, Wilbur Schramm did deliver a speech at his graduation.

After this time, he moved to Harvard University, he moved to Harvard University to specialize in U.S. History.. At the same time, he continued to gain professional experience as a reporter, this time for The Boston Herald newspaper.

From Harvard he moved again, this time to Iowa, first of all because there was an important clinic there where the stuttering problem would be treated, but also so that he could pursue his doctorate at the University of Iowa. Here he would have the opportunity to study with the author Norman Foerster. Wilbur Schramm completed his academic training with a doctorate in American literature..

His doctoral dissertation revolved around the work The Song of Hiawatha, an epic-themed poem that the author, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had written in the year 1855. He would still go on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship directed by Carl Seashore, a prestigious psychophysiologist.

Wilbur Schramm's career

After completing his postdoc, Wilbur Schramm began his career as a professor at the University of Iowa. He first served as an assistant professor, but was promoted to associate professor and then full professor. Schramm combined his work with other ways of giving voice to the writings of others, especially students. As a result, he founded the journal American Prefaces: A Journal of Critical and Imaginative Writing..

Even more important was the creation of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where the creative writing programs started by Wilbur Schramm, no less, in 1936, continue to this day.in 1936, no less. At the same time, he was publishing his own works, some of which quickly became popular, such as Windwagon Smith, a story for which he won the O. Henry Award and which was adapted into a film by Walt Disney.

But it was a historic event that changed Wilbur Schramm's career, giving him a new direction. It was World War II. Because of this terrible war, Wilbur joined the U.S. Office of War Information.. It is in this institution where he put all his knowledge and experience at the service of the government, to know in depth the effects of war propaganda.

This task brought him closer to behaviorism, one of the most powerful currents in psychology. After two years working with this organization, he returned to the University of Iowa, this time as director of the school of journalism, which he would direct for almost a year.He then moved to the University of Illinois to take the reins of the Institute for Communications Research. The year was 1947.

Subsequent assignments and final years

He was at the head of this department for eight years, but there were still more destinations awaiting him, such as Stanford University. Here he also directed a communications institute from 1955 to 1973, no less.

During this period he also headed the was also at the head of the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences.. He then left for Honolulu to head the East-West Center Communication Institute in Hawaii.

After retiring from the front line of research, Wilbur Schramm still remained connected to this institute, as a distinguished fellow and director emeritus of the institute. In fact, he spent the last years of his life in Honolulu. He passed away in 1987, at the age of 80.. Wilbur left behind his wife, daughter and grandson.

Wilbur Schramm dedicated a lifetime to teaching and research on the keys to communication. Being an eminence in this field, he was even able to make astonishing predictions about the future, for as early as 1959 he ventured to say that in times to come it would not be unreasonable to think that each person would have his own portable telephone to be in constant communication with others.

Moreover, it was thanks to him that the prestigious He was the driving force behind the founding of the prestigious communication institutes at both the University of Illinois and the University of Stanford.. As a result of his work, new students were able to obtain doctorates in communication and thus begin to work in this new field of knowledge in different parts of the world.

Importance as a communicologist

Throughout his entire career, Wilbur Schramm had the opportunity to investigate and evaluate the conditions of communication in very different parts of the world.. Some of this work took him, for example, to African and Asian countries to try to improve the way in which information was transmitted among large population centers. He also worked to improve educational conditions in countries such as El Salvador.

He also worked to improve educational conditions in countries such as El Salvador, among his achievements is that he has succeeded in developing methods for broadcasting content in India using satellite technology.. He also improved the television system in regions such as American Samoa. He was even influential in the development of a plan to establish an open university in Israel.

One of his most important works was Mass Media and National Development, a volume he published in 1964 thanks to a collaboration with UNESCO. In this book, Wilbur Schramm conducted a comprehensive analysis of the importance of the use of communication technologies as a predictor of the socioeconomic level of a country or region.

As a result of this research, Schramm came to the conclusion that the ability to communicate was key to the success of traditionally disadvantaged places in improving the living conditions of their inhabitants.. Wilbur believed that this goal could be achieved by using such communication technology for three specific tasks.

The first of these was the task of doing watchdog and investigative journalism, where communicators have the function of contrasting facts and thus controlling the actions of politicians and the powers that be in general. The second task had to do, precisely, with the proposal of new policies in favor of the population of that region.

Finally, Wilbur Schramm considered that communication should be the catalyst for modernizing a country's structures and thus bringing about a change in its status, abandoning its status as a developing country and finally becoming a developed nation, where all its members have guaranteed rights and freedoms.The aim was to transform the country from being a developing country into a developed nation, where all its members have a series of guaranteed rights and freedoms.

In addition to these proposals, Wilbur Schramm edited some thirty books throughout his career, in addition to several models that are still studied today in the field of communication, as Schramm remains a reference.

Bibliographical references:

• Glander, T. (1996). Wilbur Schramm and the founding of communication studies. Educational Theory.
• Glander, T. (1999). Origins of mass communications research during the American Cold War: Educational effects and contemporary implications. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
• Mc Anany, E.G. (1988). Wilbur Schramm, 1907-1987: Roots of the past, seeds of the present. Journal of Communication. ERIC.
• Pooley, J. (2017). Wilbur Schramm: 'Evangelist of Communication Research'. Commmunications. Media. Design.