100 years communication study in Europe: Karl Bücher’s impact on the discipline’s reflexive project

Abstract

Grounded in Giddens’ structuration theory and using Bourdieu’s analytical tools this paper argues that Karl Bucher’s launch of Europe’s first communication department at Leipzig University in 1916 had a structural impact on the discipline’s development across the continent, which goes far beyond content or citations. The evaluation of the literature on the field’s history reveals that Bucher was the starting point of the discipline’s isomorphic structuration, since he designed the look and orientation of European communication study with large consequences on its position in the academic field. This included, first, the requirement of meta capital to implement the discipline in academia. Furthermore, the launch of communication study was also strongly linked to the sociopolitical climate and the ongoing media expansion. Consequently, the practical application was the most important orientation pattern for a long time. However, to get recognition at university, the discipline finally had to focus on purely academic approaches. All these dimensions were already on the map when the discipline’s institutionalization process in Europe began 100 years ago. Therefore, Bucher’s launch of the communication department at Leipzig University can still be considered as a key element of the field’s reflexive project.