Maxwell McCombs

{{Short description|American journalism studies scholar (1938–2024)}}

{{Infobox scientist

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| name = Maxwell McCombs

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| image = Maxwell McCombs.jpg

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| birth_date = {{birth date|1938|12|03}}

| birth_place = Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2024|09|08|1938|12|03}}

| death_place = Austin, Texas, U.S.

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| nationality = American

| fields = Communication studies
Journalism
Political communication

| workplaces = University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Syracuse University
University of Texas at Austin

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| education = Tulane University
Stanford University

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| thesis_title = Role of Television in the Acquisition of Language

| thesis_url = https://books.google.com/books?id=DIhCAAAAIAAJ

| thesis_year = 1966

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| known_for = Agenda setting theory

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| awards = (with Donald Lewis Shaw) Helen Dinerman Award from the World Association for Public Opinion Research (2011)

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Maxwell E. McCombs (December 3, 1938 – September 8, 2024) was an American journalism scholar known for his work on political communication. He was the Jesse H. Jones Centennial Chair in Communication Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin.{{Cite web |url=https://journalism.utexas.edu/faculty/max-mccombs |title=Max McCombs |date=2017-01-11 |website=School of Journalism |publisher=University of Texas at Austin|language=en |access-date=2019-09-14}} He is particularly known for developing the agenda setting theory of mass media with Donald Lewis Shaw. In a 1972 paper, McCombs and Shaw described the results of a study they conducted testing the hypothesis that the news media have a large influence on the issues that the American public considers important. They conducted the study while they were both working at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The resulting paper, "The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media", has since been described as "a classic and perhaps the most cited article in the field of mass communication research in the past 35 years."{{Cite encyclopedia |chapter=McCombs, Maxwell (1938–) |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Political Communication |publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc. |location=2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks California 91320 United States |chapter-url=http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/politicalcommunication/n379.xml |last=Weaver |first=David H. |title=Mc Combs, Maxwell (1938–) |date=2008 |pages=426 |doi=10.4135/9781412953993.n379 |isbn=9781412917995}} McCombs has been described as, along with Shaw, "one of the two founding fathers of empirical research on the agenda-setting function of the press."{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2019 |title=Maxwell McCombs |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maxwell-McCombs |accessdate=2019-09-14 |last=Weaver |first=David H. |language=en}}