Burton Paulu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Burton Paulu (25 June 1910 – 8 March 2003) was an American broadcaster, author and academic specialising in the subject of media and communication.

Paulu originally hailed from the town of Pewaukee in Wisconsin but was based in Minnesota for much of his adult life. He gained a degree in music from the University of Minnesota in 1931 and claimed his interest in the subject stemmed from seeing the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra perform while he was a child. However, as a postgraduate student, Paulu worked with the campus radio station and subsequently turned his academic attention to the subject of broadcasting.

During the Second World War, Paulu worked with the United States Office of War Information. His work took him to Europe, specifically London and Luxembourg and while there, he developed an interest in European broadcasting. He gained a Ph.D in 1949 from New York University and over the next 30 years wrote a number of books about the nature of media and broadcasting in the United Kingdom, India and the former Soviet Union.

Paulu was also instrumental in setting up a national system of educational radio (and later television) from the late 1940s onward. He died in 2003 from Parkinson's disease at the age of 92.