Acknowledgments

In the course of composing the essays collected herein, I acquired a large and cosmopolitan set of obligations, and now is the time to discharge a few of them.

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided a year’s respite from administrative duties to work on three of the essays. Likewise, the Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Illinois underwrote some leisure for time at the typewriter and in the library. The Gannett Center for Media Studies at Columbia University granted me five months as an Inaugural Fellow for research, writing, and revision. Finally, I passed a happy season at the University of Georgia in its School of Journalism, undistracted, as a visiting professor celebrating the bicentennial of our first public university. To those institutions—and to Everette Dennis, Daniel Alpert, and Thomas Russell—I am greatly indebted.

My largest obligation is to John J. Quirk of Chicago, with whom I wrote two of the essays and from whom I learned much. David Thorburn’s energy and interest brought the collection together. Many others helped along the way, often in forms they would scarcely recognize. Here are a few with instant apologies to those I have omitted: Gail Crotts, Norman Sims, Douglas Birkhead, Roxanne Zimmer, Jacqueline Cartier, John Pauly, Roberta Astroff, Keya Ganguly, and Robert Fortner.

I have been blessed with membership on the faculty of two fine institutions: briefly at the University of Iowa and over a considerable period at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Much help and companionship came from people in both places: Lary Belman, John Erickson, Hanno Hardt, Charlotte Jones, Howard Maclay, Kim Rotzoll, Chuck Whitney, Ellen Wartella, Wick Rowland, Howard Ziff, Rita Simon, Larry Grossberg, and Cliff Christians. Barbara Welch has been a unique friend sharing her talents and affections generously. Albert Kreiling’s thought traces, even when it makes him unhappy, many of the sentences. Bill Alfeld has taught me more than anyone else over

xxvi Acknowledgments

thirty happy years. Ted Peterson has tried valiantly to untangle the prose along with the thought. Jay Jensen has always been a particular inspiration. Joli Jensen edited an early version and then shared her unparalleled gift for friendship. Eleanor Blum has been a consummate librarian to a generation of us at Illinois and, so much the better, a person of special affection. Much of everything unfolded in long walks and long talks with my friend and indispensable companion, Julian Simon.

These essays are reprinted largely as they originally appeared. In every chapter I yielded to the temptation to update a reference or two, alter a word here and there, and rebuild an occasional paragraph. I did merge together a few essays that at one time had an independent existence. That resulted in considerable revision, particularly in chapters two, four and six. Despite those alterations, the outlook and specifics remain true to the original publication, even when in hindsight I wanted to alter more than a few judgments. The original sources, with thanks and acknowledgment, are as follows:

Chapter 1 appeared in Communication, Volume 2, No. 2, published by Gordon and Breach Ltd. (1975). Copyright © Gordon and Breach Science Publishers S.A.

Chapter 2 appeared in Mass Communication and Society, James Curran et al., eds. (London: Edward Arnold Ltd., 1977). As revised, it incorporates material I originally wrote for an essay with Albert L. Kreiling in The Uses of Mass Communication, Jay G. Blumler and Elihu Katz, eds. (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1975). Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc.

Chapter 3 appeared as “Mass Media: The Critical View,” in Communications Yearbook V (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1982). Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc.

Chapter 4 appeared in the Mass Communication Review Yearbook, Vol. 5 (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1986). Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc.

Chapter 5 written with John J. Quirk appeared in The American Scholar, Volume 39, No. 2 (Spring 1970), and is reprinted as it appeared without the customary scholarly apparatus. It contains a number of “new” paragraphs I have added and incorporates some material contained in what was a second part of the original piece. That appeared in The American Scholar, Volume 39, No. 3 (Summer 1970). (Both articles copyright © by the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa.)

Chapter 6 was originally published as “Culture, Geography and Communications: The Work of Harold Innis in an American Context,” in Culture, Communication and Dependency, W. Melody et al, eds. (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, 1981). As revised, it incorporates material from “Canadian Communication Theory,” in Studies in Canadian Communications, edited by Gertrude

Acknowledgments xxvii

Joch Robinson and Donald Theall (Montreal: McGill University Studies in Communications, 1975).

Chapter 7 written with John J. Quirk appeared in Communications Technology: Impact and Policy edited by George Gerbner et al, New York: John Wiley, 1973. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. I have added an “afterword” to the essay.

Chapter 8 appeared in Prospects: The Annual of the American Studies Association, Vol. 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

Nena Richards patiently and generously reassembled and retyped the manuscript; Juanita Craven and before her, Zerla Young and Lorraine Selander kept life together.

Work composed over an extended period amid the usual demands of classes, administration, and family could not be sustained except through the goodness of all those mentioned earlier. Goodness we cannot repay, but we can at least exonerate it. Beyond such forgiveness are the deeper gifts: Bill, Tim, Matt, and Dan. The work, as the life, is dedicated to them and, most of all, to Bette: always present. And my Father: always present, although absent.