Wilbur Schramm established the field of communication study by founding the first doctoral-granting programs and the first university-based communication research institutes and by writing the first textbooks for the field. For several decades, he had great influence in shaping the directions of communication research. The academic field has since grown to approximately two thousand university departments that award about fifty thousand bachelor-level degrees per year—5 percent of all the degrees awarded by U.S. universities. In addition, communication study is widely taught in Latin American, European, and Asian universities, where far more students are enrolled than in the United States.

Schramm grew up in the town of Marietta, Ohio, and received his bachelor's degree from Marietta College in 1928. He then earned his master's degree in American civilization at Harvard University in 1930 and his doctoral degree in English literature at the University of Iowa in...