Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T20:46:24.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Communications, Time and Power: An Innisian View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Vincent Di Norcia
Vincent Di Norcia
Affiliation:
University of Sudbury
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 1946, after visiting Russia, Harold Innis remarked that the time had come to broaden the range of political economy by studying, first, the struggle for social supremacy between states, churches and commerce; and, second, the related competition between languages, religions, cultures and communications media. This, I argue, is what Innis accomplished. His early studies of Canadian economic history transcended conventional economics and laid the groundwork for a later political theory of communications. It expressly took up the 1946 challenge to address competing monopolies of knowledge and power, hence manipulating the space and time-binding properties of communications media. Innis' work reflected a materialist model of communications, a social ecology, a soft determinism or philosophic naturalism and it linked knowledge, freedom and power. Finally, I conclude, these insights permitted Innis to transcend bias and to search for a balanced culture.

Résumé

En 1946, après avoir visité la Russie, Harold Innis remarqua que le temps était venu d'étendre l'étude de l'économie politique à l'analyse de la lutte pour la suprématie sociale entre les états, les églises et le commerce, ainsi que la compétition qui y est reliée entre les langues, les religions, les cultures et les médias de communication. Sous cet angle, ses études préliminaires de l'histoire économique du Canada l'ont conduit à dépasser l'économie conventionnelle, et formèrent la base de sa théorie politique des communications. Cela releva expressément les défis de 1946 avec ses monopoles compétitifs de connaissance et de pouvoir en manipulant les propriétés d'espace et de temps des médias de communication. L'auteur argumente que ceci refléta un modèle matérialiste d'analyse des communications, une écologie sociale, un déterminisme modéré, un naturalisme philosophique tout en reliant la connaissance, la liberté et le pouvoir. Finalement, l'auteur conclut que ces expériences permirent à Innis de transcender le biais et d'effectuer la recherche pour une culture équilibrée.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 335 - 357
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Innis, Harold, “Reflections on Russia,” in Christian, William (ed.), Innis on Russia (Toronto: Innis Foundation, 1981), 78.Google Scholar

2 Innis, Harold A., Empire and Communications (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 7.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., 5; also Innis, Mary Quayle (ed.), Essays in Canadian Economic History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), 39–41Google Scholar; Berdoulay, Vincent, “Le Possibilisme de Harold Innis,” The Canadian Geographer 31 (1987), 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Easterbrook, W. T., “Innis and Economics,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 19 (1953), 292CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Melody, William, “Introduction,” in Melody, William, Salter, Liora and Heyer, Paul (eds.), Culture, Communication and Dependency (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1981), 8–10Google Scholar; Neill, Robin F., A New Theory of Value: The Canadian Economics of H. A. Innis (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 139, 194Google Scholar; Pal, Leslie A., “Scholarship and the Later Innis,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12 (1977), 32, 42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dallas Smythe, “Communications: Blindspot of Economics,” in Melody, Salter and Heyer (eds.), Culture, Communication and Dependency, 120; Whitaker, Reg, “To Have Insight into Much and Power over Nothing: The Political Ideas of Harold Innis,” Queen's Quarterly 90 (1983), 828Google Scholar; Watson, John A., “Innis and Classical Scholarship,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12 (1977), 45, 49, 64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Neill, Robin F., “Rationality and the Information Environment,” Journal of Canadian Studies 22 (1987), 78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Watson, “Innis and Classical Scholarship,” 45; Neill, A New Theory of Value, chap. 1, 78–79; Berger, Carl, The Writing of Canadian History (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1976), 87, 92Google Scholar; Hutcheson, John, “Harold Innis and the Unity and Diversity of Confederation,” Journal of Canadian Studies 20 (1982), 59, 69Google Scholar; Wolfe, Jonathan, “The Economic Formation of Empire,” paper presented to the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Fredericton, 1977, 41.Google Scholar

5 Berger, The Writing of Canadian History, 85–90; see also Christian, William (ed.), The Idea File of Harold Innis (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 27/96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cooper, Tom, “The Unknown Innis,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12 (1977), 113, 116CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Neill, Robin, “The Passing of Canadian Economic History,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12 (1977), 73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a dissenting view, see Eccles, W. T., “A Belated Review of Harold Innis’ The Fur Trade in Canada,” Canadian Historical Review 60 (1979), 419–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 See Horace Gray, “Reflections on Innis and Institutional Economics,” in Melody, Salter and Heyer, Culture, Communication and Dependency, 99–110; and Neill, A New Theory of Values, 26–27, 38, 76. Economists may be rediscovering the institutional approach. See, for example, Williamson, Oliver, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism (New York: Free Press, 1985Google Scholar).

7 See Innis, Essays in Canadian Economic History, 234–41; Hutcheson, “Harold Innis and the Unity and Diversity of Confederation,” 58–61; Robin F. Neill, “Imperialism and the Staple Theory of Canadian Economic Development,” in Melody, Salter and Heyer, Culture, Communication and Dependency, 145–54; Rotstein, Abraham, “Innis: The Alchemy of Fur and Wheat,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12 (1977), 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wolfe, “The Economic Formation of Empire,” 41.

8 See Ian Parker, “Innis, Marx and the Economics of Communications,” in Melody, Salter and Heyer, Culture, Communication and Dependency, 129, 132; Watkins, Mel, “The Staple Theory Revisited,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12 (1977), 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berger, “Harold Innis,” 85–89; and Neill, “The Passing of Canadian Economic History,” 73–80.

9 Innis, Harold A., The Fur Trade in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974Google Scholar). See also Berger, “Harold Innis,” 95; Berdoulay, “Le Possibilisme de Harold Innis,” 3–4; Hutcheson, “Harold Innis and the Unity and Diversity of Confederation,” 58–63; and Rotstein, “Innis: The Alchemy of Fur and Wheat.”

10 Innis, Harold, The Cod Fisheries: The History of An International Economy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978Google Scholar). See also Innis, Essays in Canadian Economic History, 27–61, 358–71, 411; Innis, Empire and Communications, 5; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 2/1, 2/10; and Aitken, Hugh G. J., “Myth and Measurement: The Innis Tradition in Political Economy,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12 (1977), 95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Hutcheson, “Harold Innis and the Unity and Diversity of Confederation,” 61–69.

12 Innis, Harold A., The Bias of Communication (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 203.Google Scholar See also Drache, Daniel, “Harold Innis and Canadian Capitalist Development,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 6 (1982), 35–60Google Scholar; Faucher, Albert, “Problématiques des richesses naturelles,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12 (1977), 106–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Irene M. Spry, “Overhead Costs, Rigidities of Productive Capacity and the Price System,” in Melody, Salter and Heyer, Culture, Communications and Dependency, 155–66; and Watkins, Mel, “The Innis Tradition in Political Economy,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 6 (1982), 20–21.Google Scholar

13 Neill, A New Theory of Value, 43–47, chaps. 3, 5.

14 Innis, Essays in Canadian Economic History, 24.

15 Ibid., 252–72. Emphasis added.

16 Ibid., 3–26.

17 See Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 1/46; and Manuel, George and Posluns, Michael, The Fourth World (Toronto: Macmillan, 1974Google Scholar).

18 McNally, David E., “Staple Theory as Commodity Fetishism: Marx, Innis and Canadian Political Economy,” Studies in Political Economy 6 (autumn 1981), 41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Creighton, Donald, Harold Adams Innis: Portrait of a Scholar (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978), 40–71.Google Scholar

19 Neill, A New Theory of Values, 42.

20 Innis, Essays in Canadian Economic History, 260.

21 Innis, Empire and Communications, 70.

22 Neill, A New Theory of Values, 52–57, 102–04.

23 Innis, Empire and Communications, 43.

24 Tugendhat, Christopher, The Multinationals (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), 31.Google Scholar See also Innis, Empire and Communications, 41, 12–29; Innis, The Bias of Communication, 40–41, 50–52; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 25/22.

25 Ibid., 16/67. See also Clark, Lorenne M. G. and Lange, Lynda, “Introduction,” in Clark, Lorenne M. G. and Lange, Lydia (eds.), The Sexism of Social and Political Theory: Women and Reproduction from Plato to Nietzsche (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), vii–xviiGoogle Scholar; Parker, Ian, “Harold Innis, Karl Marx and Canadian Political Economy,” in Grayson, J. P. (ed.), Class, State, Ideology and Change (Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980), 363Google Scholar; and Norcia, Vincent di, “The Primacy of Politics,” Our Generation 14 (1981), 46–54.Google Scholar

26 Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 5/137. See also Ibid., 5/161, 2/34; Parker, “Harold Innis, Karl Marx and Canadian Political Economy,” 362–63; Neill, “The Passing of Canadian Economic History,” 73–79; Neill, “Rationality and the Information Environment;” 78; Wolfe, “The Economic Formation of Empire” 7, 13–17, 27.

27 Christian, William, “Harold Innis as Political Theorist,” this Journal 10 (1977), 21.Google Scholar

28 Innis, Empire and Communications, 7, 25; and Innis, The Bias of Communication, xvii. See also Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 26/53; Norcia, Vincent di, “Innis: The Politics of Space and Time,” paper delivered to the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Guelph, 1985Google Scholar; and Liora Salter, “Public and Mass Media in Canada,” in Melody, Salter and Heyer, Culture, Communication and Dependency, 197–99.

29 Keast, John, “It is Written, but I say unto You: Innis on Religion,” Journal of Canadian Studies 20 (1985), 13.Google Scholar See also Innis, The Bias of Communication, 61–91.

30 Innis, Empire and Communications, chap. 2.

31 Ibid., 10, 115, chap., 6; Innis, The Bias of Communication, 14, 64; Christian, Innison Russia, 63–66, 77–79.

32 Innis, The Bias of Communication, 124, 47, 74, 112–15. See also Innis, Empire and Communications, 14, 54, 111–13, 154; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 28/197; 29/32; and Christian, “Harold Innis as Political Theorist,” 35.

33 Innis, The Bias of Communication, 21–22, 55, 141; Innis, Empire and Communications, 141–66; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 9/14; and Keast, “It is Written but I say unto You: Innis on Religion,” 19–20.

34 See Clark, S. D., Church and Sect in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1948CrossRefGoogle Scholar); and Clark, S. D., The Developing Canadian Community (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962CrossRefGoogle Scholar), part 2.

35 Innis, Empire and Communications, 7. See also Innis, The Bias of Communication, xvii, 92–131; Innis, Essays in Canadian Economic History, 18–21; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 26/53; and Whitaker, “To Have Insight into Much and Power over Nothing,” 819, 823.

36 Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius, I: 11–15. See also Innis, Empire and Communications, 149; and Innis, The Bias of Communication, 24, 75.

37 John Locke, The Second Treatise on Government, section 120.

38 See Innis, Empire and Communications, 88–89; Innis, The Bias of Communication, 12, 18–24, 45, 52, 74; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 12/4, 23/4, 29/47; Norcia, Vincent di, “Calvin and Kropotkin,” in Fitzgerald, Ross (ed.), Comparing Political Thinkers (Sydney: Pergamon, 1980), 203–22.Google Scholar

39 Innis, Essays in Canadian Economic History, 268, 307.

40 Cochrane, Charles Norris, Chrisiianity and Classical Culture (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1957), 25–26.Google Scholar

41 Innis, Empire and Communications, 10.

42 See Innis, Empire and Communications, 67, 86–87, 114, 133; and Innis, The Bias of Communication, 36, 39, 98–101; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 10/5, 27/51, Appendix; and Christian, Innis on Russia, 56.

43 Innis, Empire and Communications, 44, 89, 98; and Innis, The Bias of Communication, 45.

44 Innis, Empire and Communications, 24, 44, 54, 100, chap. 6; and Innis, The Bias of Communication, 12, 18–24, 142–89. See also Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 6/31, 19/20; James W. Carey, “Culture, Geography and Communications,” in Melody, Salter and Heyer, Culture, Communication and Dependency, 73–92.

45 Innis, Empire and Communications, 188; and Innis, The Bias of Communication, 94, 47, 139.

46 Innis, Empire and Communications, 24, 54, 66.

47 Ibid., 84; and Innis, The Bias of Communication, 39–45, 105; but see Innis, “Reflections on Russia,” 46, 66. See Skinner, Quentin, Foundations of Modern Democratic Thought, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978Google Scholar), chap. 1; Norcia, Vincent di, “Power, Knowledge and the Cogito,” paper delivered at the meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Notre Dame, 1987.Google Scholar

48 Innis, Empire and Communications, 41.

49 Ibid., 168.

50 Drache, “Harold Innis and Canadian Capitalist Development,” 9.

51 Parker, “Harold Innis, Karl Marx and Canadian Political Economy,” 362–65; Smythe, “Communications: Blindspot of Economics,” 112–13, 117–20. See also Christian, “Harold Innis as Political Theorist,” 252–53; Neill, “Rationality and the Information Environment,” 83–85; and Whitaker, “To Have Insight into Much and Power over Nothing,” 818, 823.

52 Innis, The Bias of Communication, 15. See also Innis, Empire and Communications, 19, 143–48; Carey, “Culture, Geography and Communications,” 83; Christian, William, “The Inquisition of Nationalism,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12 (1977), 62–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Easterbrook, “Innis and Economics,” 294–95; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 41; Neill, “The Passing of Canadian Economic History,” 73; and Norcia, Vincent di, “Beyond the Red Tory: Rethinking Canadian Nationalism,” Queen's Quarterly 91 (1984), 956–68.Google Scholar

53 Innis, The Bias of Communication, 190–95. See also Berger, “Harold Innis,” 102; Drache, “Harold Innis and Canadian Capitalist Development,” 8; Rotstein, “Innis: The Alchemy of Fur and Wheat,” 10–11; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 19, 100, 152; Parker, “Harold Innis, Karl Marx and Canadian Political Economy,” 365; and Salter, “Public and Mass Media in Canada,” 190.

54 Innis, The Bias of Communication, 33.

55 Ibid., xviii.

56 See Ibid., 82, 140, 188; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 11/18, 24/33, 26/33, 27/124; Smythe, “Communications: Blindspot of Economics,” 112; and Parker, “Innis, Marx and the Economics of Communications,” 137.

57 See McNally, “Staple Theory as Commodity Fetishism,” 44–51; and McNally, David E., “Technological Determinism and Canadian Political Economy,” Studies in Political Economy 20 (summer 1986), 161–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 Innis, Empire and Communications, 4.

59 Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 5/126, 5/167, 5/139, 6/20, 11/11, 11/32, 16/66, 19/5, 22/1. See also Christian, Innis on Russia, 30, 36, 77, 21, 78 (the 1946 statement).

60 Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 7/27, 26/42; Innis, The Bias of Communication, 190; Christian, Innis on Russia, 81.

61 Berdoulay, “Le Possibilisme de Harold Innis,” 3–4, 7–9; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 43–44; Neill, “Rationality and the Information Environment,” 78; Parker, “Harold Innis, Karl Marx and Canadian Political Economy,” 363, 366. See also Berger, “Harold Innis,” 107, 110; Gray, “Reflections on Innis and Institutional Economics,” 105; Carey, “Culture, Geography and Communications,” 78–79; Christian, “Harold Innis as Political Theorist,” 21; and Norcia, Vincent di, “From Critical Theory to Critical Ecology,” Telos 22 (1974), 83–95.Google Scholar

62 Innis, Empire and Communications, 65, 49, 72; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 5/225, 23/10. See also Berger, “Harold Innis,” 102–05; Creighton, Harold Adams Innis, 15; and di Norcia, “Power, Knowledge and the Cogito.”

63 Innis, The Bias of Communication, ix. See also Neill, A New Theory of Values, 85.

64 Ellul, Jacques, The Technological Society (New York: Random House, 1963Google Scholar). See also Kroker's reifying talk of “the technological experience,” in Kroker, Arthur, Technology and the Canadian Mind: Innis/McLuhan/Grant (Montreal: New World, 1984Google Scholar).

65 Grant, George, Lament for a Nation (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965Google Scholar), chap. 6.

66 See Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 11/46, 11/48, 28/104, Appendix B; Cooper, “The Unknown Innis,” 115, 117; Berger, “Harold Innis,” 85; di Norcia, “From Critical Theory to Critical Ecology”; Gray, “Reflections on Innis and Institutional Economics,” 102–03; Parker, “Innis, Marx and the Economics of Communications,” 132–37; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 84–99; and Pal, “Scholarship and the Later Innis,” 35. Evolution, of course, was an influential concept at the time of Innis’ formative years. See Wiener, Philip, Evolution and the Foundations of Pragmatism (New York: Harper, 1949Google Scholar). However, British idealism held a monopoly of philosophic theory in Canada. See Armour, Leslie and Trott, Elizabeth, The Faces of Reason (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1981Google Scholar).

67 But see Parker, “Harold Innis, Karl Marx and Canadian Political Economy,” 362–68.

68 Innis, The Bias of Communication, xvii. See also Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 24/22, 24/23, 28/81; Pal, “Scholarship and the Later Innis,” 34; Parker, “Harold Innis, Karl Marx and Canadian Political Economy,” 365, 370; Heyer, “Innis and the History of Communications,” 254; Neill, “Rationality and the Information Environment,” 84–85; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 19, 57–58, chap. 4; Watson, “Innis and Classical Scholarship,” 34; and Wolfe, “The Economic Formation of Empire,” 10, 14–17, 40, 45.

69 Carey, James W., “Innis and McLuhan,” The Antioch Review 28 (1967), 7, 31–33Google Scholar; Berdoulay, “Le Possibilisme de Harold Innis,” 7–9.

70 Berger, “Harold Innis,” 71. See also Ibid., 88, 92–94, 102, 111; Gray, “Reflections on Innis and Institutional Economics,” 100; Hutcheson, “Harold Innis and the Unity and Diversity of Confederation,” 58; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 26–27; and Parker, “Harold Innis, Karl Marx and Canadian Political Economy,” 364, 369.

71 Innis, Empire and Communications, 53, 117. See also Christian, Innis on Russia, 30; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 100–03; Parker, “Harold Innis, Karl Marx and Canadian Political Economy,” 365–68; Norcia, Vincent di, “Of Stone, Books and Freedom,” Visible Language 20 (1987), 344–54Google Scholar; and Wernick, Andrew, “The Post-Innisian Significance of Innis,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 6 (1986), 140.Google Scholar

72 See Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 28/86; and Dewey, John, Quest for Certainty (New York: Putnams, 1960Google Scholar).

73 See Kropotkin, Peter, Ethics (New York: Blom, 1968Google Scholar) and Kropotkin, Peter, Mutual Aid (New York: Blom, 1966Google Scholar); also Wolfe, “The Economic Formation of Empire”; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 39; di Norcia, “Calvin and Kropotkin”; and Carey, “Culture, Geography and Communication,” 74–75.

74 See Berofsky, Bernard, “General Introduction,” in Berofsky, Bernard (ed.), Free Will and Determinism (New York: Harper, 1966), 1–19.Google Scholar

75 McNally, “Staple Theory as Commodity Fetishism,” 56.

76 Berger, “Harold Innis,” 102. See also Neill, A New Theory of Values, 24; Christian, “Harold Innis as Political Theorist,” 25; Watson, “Innis and Classical Scholarship,” 47–50; and Whitaker, “To Have Insight into Much and Power over Nothing,” 822.

77 Christian, Innis on Russia, 34.

78 Neill, “Rationality and the Information Environment,” 78–79. See also Berger, “Harold Innis,” 105–11.

79 Heyer, “Innis and the History of Communications,” 248–50. See also Neill, “Rationality and the Information Environment,” 83–85; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 26–31; Watson, “Innis and Classical Scholarship,” 55–58; and Keast, “It is Written but I say unto You: Innis on Religion,” 21–22.

80 See Innis, Empire and Communications, 152; 23/47; Innis, The Bias of Communication, 65, 132–41; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 11/46; Watson, “Innis and Classical Scholarship,” 48; Whitaker, “To Have Insight into Much and Power over Nothing,” 827; di Norcia, “Beyond the Red Tory”; di Norcia, “Power, Knowledge and the Cogito”; and René Descartes, Discourse on Method, I-III.

81 See Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 24/5, 24/22, 27/56. 82 Innis, The Bias of Communication, 203; also xvii and Appendix II. See also Innis, Empire and Communications, 91; Christian, Innis on Russia, 48, 57, 81; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 7/21; Berger, “Harold Innis,” 101, 104; Christian, “Innis as Political Theorist,” 24–40; Gray, “Reflections on Innis and Institutional Economics,” 103; Hutcheson, “Harold Innis and the Unity and Diversity of Confederation,” 69; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 78, chap. 7; Pal, “Scholarship and the Later Innis,” 33–37; Salter, “Public and Mass Media in Canada,” 199; Donald F. Theall, “Exploration in Communications since Innis,” in Melody, Salter and Heyer, Culture, Communication and Dependency, 227–31; Watson, “Innis and Classical Scholarship,” 53–60; William Westfall, “The Ambivalent Verdict: Innis and Canadian History,” in Melody, Salter and Heyer, Culture, Communication and Dependency, 42–44; Wernick, “The Post-Innisian Significance of Innis,” 129, 134; and Whitaker, “To Have Insight into Much and Power over Nothing,” 818–19, 823.

83 Innis, Empire and Communications, 166; also 10, 24–25, 41, 54. See also Innis, The Bias of Communication, 3–4, 141; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 27/130; Christian, “The Inquisition of Nationalism,” 32–35; Christian, William, “The Idea File of Harold Innis,” Queen's Quarterly 84 (1977), 535–56Google Scholar; and Whitaker, “To Have Insight into Much and Power over Nothing,” 823.

84 Salter, “Public and Mass Media in Canada,” 199–203.

85 McCorduck, Pamela and Feigenbaum, Edward A., The Fifth Generation (New York: Signet, 1984), 46Google Scholar; and see Neill, “Rationality and the Information Environment”; and Lyon, David, Information Society (London: Polity, 1988Google Scholar), chaps. 2, 3. Networks based on small personal computers may be a decentralizing counterforce. See Drucker, Peter, “The Coming of the New Organization,” Harvard Business Review (1988), 45–53.Google Scholar

86 Innis, Empire and Communications, 117; and Innis, The Bias of Communication, 135.

87 Innis, Empire and Communications, 24–25; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 5/107; Lyon, Information Society, 24–25; Neill, A New Theory of Values, chaps. 6, 8; Heyer, “Innis and the History of Communications,” 248–60; and Habermas, Jürgen, Knowledge and Human Interests (Boston: Beacon, 1971Google Scholar).

88 Innis, The Bias of Communication, 9, 36; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 8/9.

89 Easterbrook, “Innis and Economics,” 297. See also Berger, “Harold Innis,” 108–11.

90 Neill, “Rationality and the Information Environment,” 82–86. See also Innis, The Bias of Communication, xvii; Christian, Innis on Russia, 53; Veblen, Thorstein, Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Mentor, 1953), 82–83, 135–36Google Scholar; Easterbrook, “Innis and Economics,” 301; and Whitaker, “To Have Insight into Much and Power over Nothing,” 823.

91 Innis, The Bias of Communication, xvii, 3.

92 Ibid., 132.

93 Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 25/36. See also Christian, Innis on Russia, 8; Berger, “Harold Innis,” 104–11; Christian, “Harold Innis as Political Theorist,” 24–34; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 24, chap. 9; and Watson, “Innis and Classical Scholarship,” 34, 46, 55–61.

94 Innis, The Bias of Communication, 87.

95 Ibid., 190.

96 Ibid., 141; and see 200–14, 87. See also Christian, Innis on Russia, 8; Neill, “Rationality and the Information Environment,” 85–86. Heyer notes Innis’ own Western cultural bias (“Innis and the History of Communications,” 251–52).

97 Innis, Empire and Communications, 170, 9.

98 Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 5/78.

99 Theall, “Exploration in Communications since Innis,” 229–31.

100 Neill, A New Theory of Values, chap. 9. See also Christian, “Harold Innis as Political Theorist,” 24–29.

101 Innis, “Reflections on Russia,” 81, 57–58, 66; and see Innis, The Bias of Communication, 124; Christian, The Idea File of Harold Innis, 10/5, 24/39, 25/8, 28/109, 19/43; Christian, “Harold Innis as Political Theorist,” 21–28, 34–39; Heyer, “Innis and the History of Communications,” 250–51; Neill, A New Theory of Values, 99–100; Pal, “Scholarship and the Later Innis,” 37, 39; Parker, “Innis, Marx and the Economics of Communication,” 138; Watson, “Innis and Classical Scholarship,” 54, 58–59; Westfall, “The Ambivalent Verdict: Innis and Canadian History,” 42–43.

102 Innis, Harold, Political Economy in the Modern State (Toronto: Macmillan, 1946), 138, 262Google Scholar; see also Innis, Empire and Communications, 3, 66, 80–84.