[6] Under a National Research Scholarship, he worked with renowned physiological psychologist Carl Seashore and completed a two-year postdoctoral course in psychology and sociology.
His interests extended beyond the humanistic tradition, and some of his early work examined the economic conditions surrounding the publication of Chaucer's tales, and audience reactions to poetry written in different meters.
In 1947 he moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign as director of the Institute of Communications Research, which he set up as a "flexible and non-territorial" organization unlike traditional academic departments.
[10] In 1959, in an interview published by Canadian Press (CP) on February 3, Schramm stated that communications will become more personalized within the next 10 years and that "It is conceivable that you will be carrying around your own telephone within that time.
Readers would be able to phone the news distribution center and say: 'Send me three columns of last night's hockey game and a full review of the Cuban situation.'"
In 1977 Schramm settled in Honolulu, Hawaii,[9] and was active at the Communication Institute at the East-West Center until he died on December 27, 1987, at 80 years old at his home.
[1] His academic career took him around the world as he conducted research "evaluating mass communications in Asia and Africa, educational reform in El Salvador, television in American Samoa, the use of satellite broadcasting in India and the design of an open university in Israel".
[1] His books include Mass Media in Modern Society (1949), Quality on Educational Television (1971), and Circulation of News in the Third World (1981).