Editing Harold Innis (section)

==Communications theories==
{{main|Harold Innis's communications theories}}

Innis's study of the effects of interconnected lakes and rivers on Canadian development and European empire sparked his interest in the complex economic and cultural relationships between transportation systems and communications.<ref>Innis, Harold. (2007 edition) ''Empire and Communications''. Toronto: Dundurn Press, pp. 23–24. Also see, Patterson, Graeme. (1990) ''History and Communications: Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, the Interpretation of History''. Toronto: [[University of Toronto Press]], pp. 32–33.</ref> During the 1940s, Innis also began studying pulp and paper, an industry of central importance to the Canadian economy. The research provided an additional crossover point from his work on staple products to his communications studies.<ref>Watson, p. 248.</ref> Biographer Paul Heyer writes that Innis "followed pulp and paper through its subsequent stages: newspapers and journalism, books and advertising. In other words, from looking at a natural resource-based industry he turned his attention to a cultural industry in which information, and ultimately knowledge, was a commodity that circulated, had value, and empowered those who controlled it."<ref name="Heyer, p. 30">Heyer, p. 30.</ref>

[[File:Plato Symposium papyrus.jpg|thumb|right|A Greek copy of Plato's ''Symposium'' from a papyrus roll. Innis argued that Plato's dialogues combined the vitality of the spoken word with the power of writing, a perfect balance between time and space.]]

One of Innis's primary contributions to communications studies was to apply the dimensions of time and space to various media. He divided media into [[Time- and space-bias|time-binding and space-binding types]]. Time-binding media are durable and include [[clay tablet|clay]] or [[stele|stone tablet]]s. Space-binding media are more ephemeral and include modern media such as radio, television, and mass circulation newspapers.<ref>Innis (Empire), p. 27.</ref>

Innis examined the rise and fall of ancient empires as a way of tracing the effects of communications media. He looked at media that led to the growth of an empire; those that sustained it during its periods of success, and then, the communications changes that hastened an empire's collapse. He tried to show that media 'biases' toward time or space affected the complex interrelationships needed to sustain an empire. The interrelationships included the partnership between the knowledge (and ideas) necessary to create and maintain an empire and the power (or force) required to expand and defend it. For Innis, the interplay between knowledge and power was always a crucial factor in understanding empire.<ref>Watson, p. 313.</ref>

Innis argued that a balance between the spoken word and writing contributed to the flourishing of [[Ancient Greece]] in the time of [[Plato]].<ref>Innis (Empire), pp. 78–79.</ref> The balance between the time-biased medium of speech and the space-biased medium of writing was eventually upset, Innis argued, as the oral tradition gave way to the dominance of writing. The torch of empire then passed from [[Ancient Greece|Greece]] to [[Ancient Rome|Rome]].<ref>Innis (Empire), p. 104. See also, Heyer, pp. 49–50.</ref>

Innis's analysis of the effects of communications on the rise and fall of empires led him to warn grimly that [[Western world|Western civilization]] was now facing its own profound crisis. The development of powerful communications media such as mass-circulation newspapers had shifted the balance decisively in favour of space and power, over time, continuity and knowledge. The balance required for cultural survival had been upset by what Innis saw as "mechanized" communications media used to transmit information quickly over long distances. The new media had contributed to an obsession with "present-mindedness", wiping out concerns about past or future.<ref>Innis, Harold. (1951) ''The Bias of Communication''. Toronto: [[University of Toronto Press]], p. 87.</ref> Innis wrote,
{{blockquote|The overwhelming pressure of mechanization evident in the newspaper and the magazine, has led to the creation of vast monopolies of communication. Their entrenched positions involve a continuous, systematic, ruthless destruction of elements of permanence essential to cultural activity.<ref name="Innis"/>}}

Western civilization could be saved, Innis argued, only by recovering the balance between space and time. For him, that meant reinvigorating the oral tradition within universities while freeing institutions of higher learning from political and commercial pressures. In his essay, ''A Plea for Time'', he suggested that genuine dialogue within universities could produce the critical thinking necessary to restore the balance between power and knowledge. Then, universities could muster the courage to attack the monopolies that always imperil civilization.<ref>Innis (Bias), pp. 61–91. The comment about universities mustering their courage appears in "The upside of ivory towers" by Rick Salutin. ''Globe and Mail'', September 7, 2007.</ref>

Although Innis remains appreciated and respected for the grand and unique nature of his later efforts regarding communications theories, he was not without critics. Particularly, the fragmentary and mosaic writing style exemplified in ''[[Empire and Communications]]'' has been criticized as ambiguous, aggressively nonlinear, and lacking connections between levels of analysis.<ref>Stamps, J. (1991) ''Negative Dialogues: a study of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan in the light of the negative dialects of Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin.'' Ottawa: Canada National Library, p. 6</ref> Biographers have suggested that the style may have been a result of Innis's illness late in his career.<ref>Heyer, Paul. (1988) ''Communications and History: Theories of Media, Knowledge and Civilization''. Westport: Greenwood Press, p. 114</ref>