In his text “Functional Analysis and Mass Communication” from 1960, Charles R. Wright develops a functionalist approach, based on the theoretical orientation of Merton, which he adapts for the research of mass communication. Wright’s aim is to develop the framework for a comprehensive functional analysis of mass communication and to describe the essential theoretical and methodological aspects for this. Functional analyses could illuminate the diverse uses of mass media and the various satisfactions and annoyances that recipients experience when receiving news. Various studies in the immediately preceding years had already explicitly or implicitly used a functional framework for the investigation of various aspects of mass communication. His text is therefore not a call for something new, but rather a first step towards explicitly considering certain theoretical and methodological questions that are relevant for the future development of a functional theory of mass communication. His article triggered an avalanche of functional analytical studies in communication science.