Klasyczne dzieło poprzednika Marshalla McLuhana
Jedyne na Allegro, jedne z niewielu egzemplarzy dostępnych w Polsce (w bibliotekach są tylko starsze wydania)!
Innis central focus is the social history of communication media; he believed that the relative stability of cultures depends on the balance and proportion of their media. To begin our inquiry into this area, he suggests we ask three basic questions:
For Innis, a key to social change is found in the development of communication media. He claims that each medium embodies a bias in terms of the organization and control of information. Any empire or society is generally concerned with duration over time and extension in space.
Time-biased media, such as stone and clay, are durable and heavy. Since they are difficult to move, they do not encourage territorial expansion; however, since they have a long life, they do encourage the extension of empire over time. Innis associated these media with the customary, the sacred, and the moral. Time-biased media facilitate the development of social hierarchies, as archetypally exemplified by ancient Egypt. For Innis, speech is a time-biased medium.
Space-biased media are light and portable; they can be transported over large distances. They are associated with secular and territorial societies; they facilitate the expansion of empire over space. Paper is such a medium; it is readily transported, but has a relatively short lifespan.
David Godfrey summarizes Innis distinction as follows:
For Innis, the organization of empires seems to follow two major models. The first model is militaristic and concerned with the conquest of space. The second model is religious and concerned with the conquest of time. Comparatively, the media that have supported the military conquering of space have been lighter, so that the constraints of long distances could be lessened. Those media that supported theocratic empires had relative durability as a major characteristic so that they could support the concepts of eternal life and endless dynasties. (ix)
Oral communication, speech, was considered by Innis to be time-biased because it requires the relative stability of community for face-to-face contact. Knowledge passed down orally depends on a lineage of transmission, often associated with ancestors, and ratified by human contact. In his writings, Innis is forthright in his own bias that the oral tradition is inherently more flexible and humanistic than the written tradition, which he found rigid and impersonal in contrast.
