Maxwell Elbert McCombs

1938 - 2024

Maxwell Elbert McCombs died at home on September 8, 2024, after a long, but mostly pain-free, battle with cancer. He was 85.

A consummate academic scholar, McCombs was the Jesse H. Jones Centennial Chair in Communication Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin. Internationally recognized for his research on the agenda-setting role of the news media in the formation of public opinion, he lectured at universities in more than 30 countries around the world.

He collaborated on the first agenda-setting study with his dear friend, the late Donald Shaw, a professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, during the 1968 presidential election. Their friend and colleague David Weaver, now professor emeritus at Indiana University, joined McCombs and Shaw to launch major agenda-setting studies shortly afterward.

From 1994 to 2014, McCombs enjoyed annual summer research visits to the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, accompanied by his wife, Betsy, and their sons, Max and Sam. McCombs also held a faculty appointment at Catholic University in Santiago, Chile, and was a visiting professor at Diego Portales University in Santiago and at the University of Vienna. Of special pride among his international travels was a two-month trip around the world with his family in the summer of 1999, including visits to Spain, Singapore, Australia, Tahiti, and Chile.

McCombs was a co-founder in 2003 of Communication in the Millennium, an annual research conference alternating between the U.S. and Turkey. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Antwerp in Belgium and Catholic University in Chile. He is a past president of the World Association for Public Opinion Research and a fellow of the International Communication Association.

McCombs wrote many books, the most recent being The Power of Information Networks, co-edited with Lei Guo at Fudan University in Shanghai, and the third edition of Setting the Agenda: The Mass Media and Public Opinion, co-written with Sebastian Valenzuela at Catholic University in Santiago. His books have been translated into eight languages. McCombs also supervised 44 doctoral dissertations at UT. He published more than 100 articles on journalism and mass communication.

McCombs was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on December 3,1938, and grew up there. His father, Max McCombs, was a supervisor at a plant producing iron. His mother, Gertrude (Smith) McCombs, was a registrar in the Birmingham public schools.

McCombs received his B.A. from Tulane University in 1960 and an M.A. in 1961 and a Ph.D. in 1966 from Stanford University. During his years at Stanford, McCombs shared a house at 211 Middlefield Road with four other grad students. They became known as the 211ers and reconnected during the COVID pandemic through weekly Zoom sessions that have continued to the present.

Before joining the Moody College of Communication at UT in 1985, McCombs was the John Ben Snow Professor of Research at Syracuse University from 1973 to 1985. He served as director of the News Research Center of the American Newspaper Publishers Association from 1975 to 1984. Earlier he was on the faculties of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1967 to 1973) and UCLA (1965 to 1967) and worked as a crime and courts reporter at the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Outside of work and travel, McCombs' interests included railroad history, wine, music (opera, jazz, R&B, classic rock 'n' roll), mysteries (especially Sherlock Holmes), and watching baseball. He had many animal friends throughout the years, including Dodie, his "Piney Mountain Fox Hound" (a breed name he coined himself) in North Carolina and a long line of cats in Austin, beginning with Zeke, his beloved "Cedar Park Grey."

McCombs is survived by his wife of 35 years, Elizabeth (Betsy) Inskip McCombs, and their sons, Maxwell Inskip McCombs (partner Anna Reed) and Samuel Edward McCombs (fiancée Catherine Cerna). He also is survived by two daughters from his previous marriage to Zoe Collins McCombs: Mary Elizabeth (Molly) McCombs (husband Randy Ross); and Leslie Ann Russell (husband Jim Russell) and their sons Alden and Devon Russell.

There will be no public services, but those who are so inclined are encouraged to smile and raise a glass to Max. The family recommends that anyone wishing to memorialize him consider donations to the Capital Area Food Bank, to the Maxwell McCombs Graduate Student Publishing Award (https://hornraiser.utexas.edu/MaxwellMcCombs), or to the Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue (a pet cause Max adopted late in life).

The family wishes to thank Dr. Punit Chadha and his associates at Texas Oncology for the outstanding care they provided to Max for many years.