International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

James Carey was an American communication scholar who died in 2006. It is difficult to pinpoint his most important and lasting contribution to the field of communication as so many sub-fields would like to claim him as their own. Was Carey the founder of a uniquely American → cultural studies , the United States' most prominent journalism educator and theorist, an eminent historian of communication technologies, a media ecologist, or an eminent member in a long tradition of religious communication scholars? Prominent scholars have answered each question in the affirmative. Such a breadth of admirers and adherents is testament not only to the power of his scholarship, but to his ability to inspire, nurture, and mentor an equally wide-ranging cohort of graduate students. James Carey was born in 1934. His description of his working-class upbringing in Providence, Rhode Island, during the Depression and World War II explains two central elements to his life's work. First, his family's direct involvement in the class struggle formed the foundations of his commitment to justly attend to the political dimensions of research, pedagogy, and university administration. Second, the meaning derived from the Catholicism of his youth served as grounds for acknowledging the ritual elements of communicative practice that hold together communities over time. These two themes – a politically committed ... log in or subscribe to read full text