Harold Adams Innis (1894 –1952) was a Canadian economic historian turned communication theorist, whose research focused on the role of the medium in communication processes. His work – historical in method and ecumenical in scope – demonstrated the centrality of communications in social, political, and cultural development. Together with his junior colleague, Marshall McLuhan, he
Harold Dwight Lasswell (1902–1978), American political scientist with a specific interest in the symbolic aspects of politics, is considered one of the founders of mass communication research in the United States. Although his wide-ranging and prolific writings on theoretical and methodological issues regarding politics, personality, and culture remained rather peripheral to communication research, his approach