About ICR

As its founder, Wilbur Schramm, envisioned it, the multidisciplinary Institute of Communications Research (ICR) is "something very unlike a traditional academic department." As its cognate disciplines have evolved, communications research at Illinois has developed and linked differently at different periods to the larger world of communication and information. The continuously changing nature of communication has provoked shifting relations between scholars in the academy and leaders in industry, policy, external funding agencies, and public life.

The Institute's doctoral program is strong in all areas that measure excellence and effectiveness: these include reputation among peer programs, acceptance rate, quality of applicants, scholarly productivity, teaching excellence, graduate job placement, and reputation of graduates.

Institute faculty are known throughout the world. A comprehensive 1999 review of communications graduate programs identified Professor Paula Treichler and ICR emeritus Research Professor James Carey as outstanding scholars in audience/cultural studies. Three faculty in the country were named as outstanding scholars in political economy and media history: John Nerone, Bob McChesney, and Dan Schiller. All are on the faculty of the Institute.