James D. Halloran, a pioneer of media and communication scholarship in the United Kingdom, has died after a short illness at the age of 80. 

Jim was born in Yorkshire, England in 1927. After a B.Sc. in Sociology and Economics at Hull University in 1951, and brief stints as a school teacher and prison tutor, he joined the University of Leicester in 1958 as a Senior Tutor in the Department of Adult Education. Jim quickly gained a reputation for his energy, his capacity for hard work and for his prodigious research output.

His first book, Control or Consent: a Study of the Promise of Mass Communication (Sheed and Ward), appeared in 1963. This, and a string of research papers and reports in the newly emerging field, attracted outside attention; Jim was able to persuade various commercial sponsors and his university that there was a need for a permanent academic base in Britain for research into the effects of television and other media.

The Centre for Mass Communication Research was formed under Jim's Directorship in 1966 and he was promoted to the Chair in Mass Communications (the first such appointment in Britain) shortly afterwards. His inaugural lecture, entitled Mass Media and Society: the challenge of research, defined Jim's position in the field, emphasizing as it did the need to take a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to the study of the media and to apprehend their significance as social institutions as well as in the social contexts of their use. This was an unusual position to adopt at the time, breaking with much mainstream research which more often focused on the media's influence on individual psychological processes.

Jim's success in establishing the Centre rested on his ability to talk funding bodies into sponsoring work that would have wider relevance for media policy and practice. Equally important was his eye for academic talent: He persuaded some of the best young scholars in the field to join him at Leicester. He created a productive and lively research environment for his team that over the next 20 years helped to place the department among the most widely known and respected centres for media and communications research in the world. He retired as Director in 1991.

Perhaps Jim's most important academic legacy is represented in the thriving international academic community that is the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR - formerly the International Association of Mass Communication Research). Frustrated at the quietism he found in IAMCR in the early 1970s and elected President in 1972, he set about a programme of invigoration by devising and organizing a schedule of biannual conferences that quickly stretched IAMCR's influence across the globe. Working with UNESCO and other international organizations to bring scholars from the first, second, and, for the first time, third worlds together, and amassing a membership of over 2000 from more than 70 countries, IAMCR was able to address some of the most important media and communications issues of the day and promote the cause of critical, policy-relevant, social scientific research. Building on foundations established by Jim and his colleagues, IAMCR continues as one of the foremost international academic associations for the study of the media.

Among numerous awards during his lifetime, Jim was most proud to have received the Yugoslav Flag with Golden Star in 1990 for his "development of communication science and contribution to international scientific cooperation"; his Honorary Life Presidency of IAMCR in 1990; the McLuhan Teleglobe Canada Award in 1991; and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Tampere in 1975 and Bergen in 1990.

Those who were lucky enough to know him well will remember Jim's warmth and great generosity as a host. He took a keen interest in sport and had a Yorkshireman's affection for cricket and rugby. He often found time to watch both sports, playing rugby in his earlier days at Hull and for many years playing cricket for the university team at Leicester. Most will remember Jim's fondness of good food, fine wine and lively, preferably combative, conversation. He will be greatly missed by his family and his many friends and colleagues in the UK and around the world.

He is survived by his daughters Anna and Cathleen, sons Patrick and Michael, and seven grandchildren.