施拉姆的学术遗产与美国传播学四大奠基人的神话

The Academic Legacies of Wilbur Schramm and the Mythology of the Four Founding Fathers in Early Communication Studies of America

既有的文献显示,在美国本土,传播学史研究除了施拉姆与罗杰斯的正统叙述外,还存在基于拓展或反思(并非挑战)施拉姆意义上的两派传播学研究治史理念。本文试图中和既有的两种截然相反的治史理念,重新整合有关美国传播学起源的历史著作或研究材料所引用的施拉姆或其他学者的口述录音、往来信件等一手材料,并结合四大奠基人的研究文献,及其自述文章,对施拉姆与四大奠基人的期刊论文与学术著作等材料进行整理与阐释,以此勾勒出二战前、战时以及冷战前期,施拉姆与四位奠基人的个人生活轨迹、学术经历以及政治立场,同传播学理论的建立与发展以及美国国内和国际政治局势等三个不同层面之间丰富且重叠的互动过程,进而由内向外地论证美国传播学作为一门脱胎于二战的社会科学,其问题意识与研究方法不是独立于历史和政治环境,其研究成果更难以完全摆脱国家、意识形态的左右或操控。

In the United States, according to previous studies, in addition to the narration by Schramm and Rogers, there are two other kinds of studies which extend or reflect instead of challenge the history view of Schramm. One is established by James Carey. With a ritual view of communication instead of a transmission view, he argues that Chicago School and Lipmann should be the founders of American communication studies. The other study is called New Historicism. This article tries to neutralize the two totally opposite concepts of history narration, reintegrate the works of the beginning of communication studies in America and other first-hand materials including tapes and letters of Schramm and other scholars cited by researches. The study is also based on the work and the self-statements of four founding fathers, especially those of Lasswell and Lazarsfeld. The study aims at narrating the interaction on three different levels before and during WWⅡ and the early years of Cold War: the personal life, academic experience and political stands of Schramm and four founding fathers;the establishment and development of communication theories;the domestic and international political situations, which further demonstrates inside-out that communication studies, as a subject of social science formed during WWⅡ, its problems and research methods are not independent from historical and political environment, and it is hard for those research results to get rid of the control of state and ideology.