Harold Innis's communications theories

[3] But he warned that Western civilization is now imperiled by powerful, advertising-driven media obsessed by "present-mindedness" and the "continuous, systematic, ruthless destruction of elements of permanence essential to cultural activity.

Time-biased media include clay or stone tablets, hand-copied manuscripts on parchment or vellum and oral sources such as Homer's epic poems.

They include modern media such as radio, television, and mass circulation newspapers that convey information to many people over long distances, but have short exposure times.

Since, in their purest form, time-bound cultures do not rely on written records, they must preserve their traditions in story, song and myth handed down unchanged from one generation to the next.

On the other hand, societies that depend on space-biased media such as printed newspapers and books tend to favour abstract thought and control over space.

[7] The encounter of European traders from the imperial centres of France and Britain with the aboriginal tribes of North America that Innis chronicled in The Fur Trade in Canada is a poignant example of what can happen when two different civilizations meet --- one traditional and oriented to preserving its tribal culture in time and the other bent on spreading its influence over long distances.

Power was increased by concentration in a few hands, specialization of function was enforced, and scribes with leisure to keep and study records contributed to the advancement of knowledge and thought.

He writes that Innis "emphasizes, in dealing with concrete historical cases, the necessity of a balance of various media whose predispositions [or biases] complement each other to make for a successful imperial project."

Innis examined each empire to discover how time-binding and space-binding media contributed to the necessary balance between power and knowledge and among ruling groups – religious, political and military.

He went on to mention the evolution of communications media from the cuneiform script inscribed on clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia to the advent of radio in the 20th century.

The scribe had the full qualifications of a special profession and was included in the upper classes of kings, priests, nobles and generals, in contrast with peasants, fishermen, artisans and labourers.

He ended his essay on ancient Egypt by pointing to the imbalance that arose because the priestly monopoly over writing and knowledge supported an emphasis on time and religion, but neglected the political problems inherent in ruling over an empire extended in space.

The largely illiterate laity depended on priests to interpret the scriptures and on image-driven media such as paintings and statues that depicted the central figures in Biblical stories.

Innis wrote that the Catholic Church fought to preserve its time-oriented monopoly of knowledge with the Inquisition, but eventually paper achieved even greater power with the invention of the printing press around the middle of the 15th century.

In the United States, the dominance of the newspaper led to large-scale development of monopolies of communication in terms of space and implied a neglect of problems of time.

[22] Harold Innis's analysis of the effects of communications on the rise and fall of empires led him, in the end, to warn grimly that Western civilization was now facing its own profound crisis.

The development of "mechanized" communications media such as mass-circulation newspapers had shifted the balance decisively in favour of space and power, over time, continuity and knowledge.

Industrial societies cut time into precise fragments suitable to engineers and accountants[23] and Western civilization suffered from an "obsession with present-mindedness" that eliminated concerns about past or future.

[28] Innis believed that the overwhelming spatial bias of modern media was heightened in the United States by the development of powerful military technologies, including atomic weapons.

"[30] In an essay entitled, "Technology and Public Opinion in U.S.A," Innis concluded that the United States depended on a foreign policy shaped by military power.

"Dependence on organized power and a traditional antipathy to coloured peoples weakens political sensitivity, and lack of experience with problems of continuity and empire threatens the Western world with uncertainty and war.

Poe's theory also predicts the effects the media will have on society by considering eight attributes of a medium: accessibility, privacy, fidelity, volume, velocity, range, persistence, and searchability.

The encounter of European traders from a space-bound print culture with aboriginal hunters from a time-bound oral culture. Innovation meets tradition with disastrous, long-term results.
A papyrus copy of Plato's Symposium . Using the flexible Greek alphabet, Plato preserved the power of spoken dialogue in written prose. Innis thought this balancing of time and space-oriented media contributed to the cultural and intellectual vitality of ancient Greece.
The Sphinx and the Great Pyramid at Giza. Innis wrote that the monarchs who built the pyramids had to relinquish their absolute power when papyrus replaced stone as the dominant medium of communication.
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 1400). Innis pointed out that Chaucer wrote in vernacular English instead of Latin or Norman French hastening the growth of English nationalism.
Portrait of Chaucer by Thomas Hoccleve .
A B-2 Stealth Bomber leads an aerial flight formation during exercise Valiant Shield in 2006. Innis believed that advanced U.S. military technologies reinforced the American obsession with space, empire and force at the expense of time, tradition and knowledge.