Harold A. Innis: Empire & Communications (1950/1986)

It’s been said that without Harold A. Innis there could have been no Marshall McLuhan. Empire and Communications is one of Innis’s most important contributions to the debate about how media influence the development of consciousness and societies. In this seminal text, he traces humanity’s movement from the oral tradition of preliterate cultures to the electronic media of recent times. Along the way, he presents his own influential concepts of oral communication, time and space bias, and monopolies of knowledge.

Keywords and phrases
Babylonia, monopoly of knowledge, papyrus, Hittites, Egypt, Byzantine empire, Persian empire, Sumerian, oral tradition, Hyksos, Dionysus, Assyrian, Kassites, Orphism, monasticism, Roman law, Mitanni, Werner Jaeger, Aramaic, Athens

Edited by Dave Godfrey
Publisher Press Porcépic, 1986
ISBN 0888782446, 9780888782441
Length 184 pages

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Dan Laughey: Key Themes in Media Theory (2007)

Key Themes in Media Theory provides a thorough and critical introduction to the key theories of media studies. It is unique in bringing together different schools of media theory into a single, comprehensive text, examining in depth the ideas of key media theorists such as Lasswell, McLuhan, Hall, Williams, Barthes, Adorno, Baudrillard and Bourdieu.

Using up-to-date case studies the book embraces media in their everyday cultural forms – music, internet, film, television, radio, newspapers and magazines – to enable a clearer view of the ‘big picture’ of media theory.

In ten succinct chapters Dan Laughey discusses a broad range of themes, issues and perspectives that inform our contemporary understanding of media production and consumption. These include:

* Behaviourism and media effects
* Feminist media theory
* Postmodernity and information society
* Political economy
* Media consumerism

Publisher Open University Press, McGraw-Hill, 2007
ISBN 0335218148, 9780335218141
Length 248 pages

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Paul Heyer: Harold Innis (2003)

His name may not be as well known as that of his colleague and spiritual descendent, Marshall McLuhan, but Harold Innis’s (1894-1952) influence on contemporary critical media and communication studies has been no less profound. This concise look at Innis’s life and contributions to the communication field charts his beginnings in political economy to his later work in critical media studies and communications history, synthesizing his key publications and clearly showing their ongoing resonance for the field today. The book also includes an appendix by William J. Buxton on the “History of Communications” manuscript and one by J. David Black on the contributions of Mary Quayle Innis.

Keywords and phrases
Harold Innis, University of Toronto, monopoly of knowledge, Harold Adams Innis, fur trade, Marshall McLuhan, space-bias, Innis’s, Eric Havelock, History of Communications, Donald Grant Creighton, Canadian Pacific Railway, Alfred Kroeber, political economy, quipu, Thorstein Veblen, communication studies, Ronald Deibert, Peter Pond, David Crowley

Publisher Rowman & Littlefield, 2003
ISBN 0742524841, 9780742524842
Length 133 pages

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