University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

Originally established in 1950 as the National Society for the Study of Communication, the International Communication Association (ICA) has grown to be the largest worldwide academic organization devoted to the systematic study of communication. The collection is composed primarily of administrative records created and/or collected by various officers from 1946 to 2016, and serves to document the association’s development over the years. Materials include correspondence, board meeting minutes and reports, bylaws and constitutions, conference proceedings, division records, financial records, membership records, and publication records.

Elihu Katz (born 1926) is an American Israeli sociologist and media scholar who has made substantial contributions to the field of communication, specifically in the areas of media effects, diffusion, uses and gratifications and reception, and media events. This primary portion of Katz’s papers documents his scholarly and professional activities at the Guttman Institute of Applied Social Research, and Annenberg Schools for Communication at the University of California and University of Pennsylvania, respectively. Materials pertaining to the University of Chicago, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Israel Broadcasting Authority are also present, but less substantially so. The collection is divided into ten series and includes correspondence; drafts of talks, papers, articles, and books; research notes; conference materials; teaching materials and course documents; public opinion studies and reports; Israeli broadcasting materials; and biographical documents.