Our Mission
When publisher, diplomat and philanthropist Walter Annenberg announced the dedication
of the Annenberg School for Communication (ASC) in 1959, he described its purpose
with the following words:
“Every human advancement or reversal can be understood through communication. The
right to free communication carries with it responsibility to respect the dignity
of others – and this must be recognized as irreversible. Educating students to effectively
communicate this message and to be of service to all people is the enduring mission
of this school.”
Through the following decades, the ASC remains true to this mission, while responding
to changes affecting the School, the University and the larger educational, scholarly
and professional environments.
Today, we advance our mission through four central goals:
- Producing and disseminating cutting-edge scholarly research designed to advance
the field’s theoretical and empirical understanding of the role of communication
in public and private life.
- Producing high-quality applied research designed to advance the public’s understanding
and effective use of communication (from face-to-face conversations to mass media),
and policy-makers’ ability to create a media environment that fosters the personal
and collective development of its citizens.
- Providing a first-class liberal arts education to undergraduates, designed to help
make them better consumers and producers of public information, strengthening their
understanding of the role of communication in their personal, professional and civic
lives, and preparing them for private and public-sector leadership positions in
communication-related fields.
- Educating Ph.D. graduate students in the theories, substance and methods of communication
research and placing them in leading academic and professional positions in the
field.
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