Paul Heyer

This is an extremely helpful and informative book. I'd managed to get 30% of the way thru Empire and Communications, but after reading Heyer's book, I'm well on my way thru The Bias of Communications, and then I'm going to get the latest revision of Empire, and start on it. To restate Heyer's advice on reading Innis in my own words:

1) Innis provides a broad brush treatment , and was increasingly conscious of his limited lifespan. Treat his work as a starting point, not a finishing point.

2) The degree to which Innis himself believed in such direct linear relationships between media characteristics and political upheavals is a matter of continuing debate. You do not need to be a determinist (and most contemporary scholars are not) to read Innis and develop a greater appreciation for the social effects of mechanical differences in technology.

3) He was surrounded by classicists and was overly fixated on a romantic view of Greek oralicism. This is probably a weakness on his part, and the Greek discussions contain many of his least defensible ideas. Don't become overly distracted by this, but instead, treat it as evidence of his humanity.

4) He drops the names of a large number of scholars who are virtually unknown today, even to the lecturers who are using Innis in the classroom. While I do feel some sort of annotated guide would be a useful addition to Innis scholarship (no indication from Heyer that such a thing exists), it should improve the readers confidence in their own internal preparation to realize that parts of Innis are considered universally obscure.

5) Whether or not the intentions of the author should be meaningful to the reader is of course a matter of debate, although as a creator of formal and informal work (such as this review), I personally would like to think that my intentions were valid and honored in the future. Innis almost certainly did not expect his hurried work on communications to be considered the last word, but instead intended it to be a starting point for his successors. You honor his work not by accepting it outright, nor by discarding it as naive media determinism, but instead, you honor it by discarding that which doesn't advance knowledge, and by keeping and refining that which does. A half century on, students of history, communications, and media theory are continuing to benefit from exposure to Innis' work.

Simply put, anyone who wants to better understand Innis, and read his work, would benefit from including Heyer's book as a guide to a half century of reaction to the seeds planted by Innis and the many fruits born through his ideas.

I believe Innis would be pleased.… (més)