Adieu Denis McQuail

 The Doyen of Modern Media Studies

True to the maxim that “man dies by what he lives on”, Emeritus Professor   Denis McQuail was said to have taken his last breathe on Sunday June 25th, 2017 “scribbling notes and thoughts about academic theory on the back of envelopes and scraps of paper right up to the end”.
In a condolence message to the family, Professor Janet Wasko, the President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), described the deceased as “the author of innumerable works that opened the doors for so many of us, and a quite incomparable codifier of the achievements and cumulative knowledge of media and communications scholarship”.
Born in London on 12th April, 1935, McQuail is considered one of the most influential communication scholars across the globe. After obtaining a BA in Modern History from the University of Oxford in 1958 and an MA in Public and Social Administration; In 1969, at the age of 34, McQuail obtained his PhD in social studies from the University of Leeds.
His PhD thesis, entitled "Factors affecting public interest in television plays” was a trailblazer cutting across the disciplines of communication, technology, sociology and psychology.
With a successful academic career which he debuted in the UK, McQuail was on August 1, 1977 appointed as an Emeritus Professor at the University of Amsterdam. This British Communication theorist, delivered his inaugural lecture at the University of Amsterdam on 6th Novemebr, 1978 on "The historicity of a science of mass media: time, place, circumstances and the effects of mass communication".
One of the early works of McQuail was a joint publication with Dr. Sven Windahl. It was a book Communication Models published in the 1980s. The central themes of the book can be classified into four units. A part discusses the basic communication models: Shannon and Weaver's, and Gerbner's. The second theme of the book centered on theories of media while the third theme was on audience-centered models, and fourth theme was a general overview of mass media systems.
McQuail published widely in the areas of media and communication. His publications mostly centered on audience research, political communication, and media policy and performance. Prominent among the writings of McQuail that will ever remain indelible include: McQuail's Mass Communication Theory, Media Accountability and Freedom of Publication. Hardly is there any Mass Communication scholar or student of contemporary time that has never cited, seen or use his works.
It is in recognition of his scholarly works that the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) established the Denis McQuail Award in honour of him. Instituted in 2006, The Denis McQuail Award is given annually to the best article advancing communication theory.
A closest colleague of McQuail, Peter Golding of the University of Northumbria, described the deceased as “one of the giants of our field, the author of numerous original works, probably the field’s major textbook, and one of the founders of the European Journal of Communication. Most of all he was a good friend and incomparable mentor for many in the field, and he will be badly missed and long remembered”.