HAROLD INNIS, CULTURAL POLICY, AND RESIDUAL MEDIA

Abstract

Harold Innis resides as a defining figure for the disciplinary coherence of communication studies, economic history and cultural history in Canada. And yet, he remains largely unknown abroad. This paper reassesses his contributions to cultural policy studies through an examination of Innis’s historical argument about technology, knowledge and power. Whereas he has been understood typically as a rigid technological determinist, this paper argues that Innis charted social relations as products of multiple historical forces. He proposed a model for studying the layering of the new and the old in technological and cultural life. Moreover, his analysis accounted for uneven development, showing how certain technologies can become root elements in the construction of empires. In sum, Innis’s thought alerts us to the way the administration of cultural policy decisions creates the context for further initiatives.

KEYWORDS:

• cultural history
• technology studies
• residual media
• Canadian culture
• imperialism

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Earlier versions of this research were presented at the Special Panel in Honour of Harold Innis, University of Toronto, May 2002, and at the Intellectuals and Cultural Policy Symposium, Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick, September 2005. Discussion at each venue greatly assisted the development of the paper, particularly those with Jeremy Ahearne, Oliver Bennett, Jody Berland, Chris Bilton, Bill Buxton, James Carey, Heather Menzies, Graham Murdock and Will Straw. This essay is dedicated to James Carey, dear teacher and mentor, who inspired several generations of critical communication scholars, and whose work will no doubt inspire several more.

Notes

1. Dowler (1999) is a perceptive commentary on these issues of policy, applying Wesley Wark’s (1992) description of Canada as a “national insecurity state” to matters of culture.

2. Full documentation of Innis’s wide‐ranging policy and administrative work appears in several of the contributions to Acland and Buxton (1999); see also Paul Heyer’s (2003) biographical reassessment of Innis.

3. Innis’s The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History (Innis 1930a) holds the number 16 spot and Empire and Communications (Innis 1950) comes in at number 27.