Harold Innis’ Excavation of Modernity: The Newspaper Industry, Communications, and the Decline of Public Life

Abstract

In most discussions of Harold Innis' work on communications, his contributions have been treated as those of a general media theorist. His analyses of particular media are commonly viewed simply as instances of his broader account of how space- and time-binding media serve to bias societies and civilizations. This paper argues that Innis' generalizations about media derived, in fact, from his examination of how a particular cluster of media -- namely, printing and publishing, with particular reference to newspapers -- was linked to the onset of modernity. These concerns were evident in his magisterial unpublished manuscript, History of Communication. Drawing on its periodization and overarching themes, this paper examines Innis' account of the newspaper industry as it developed between the American Revolution and the mid-point of the twentieth century. The historical trajectory that Innis traces, it is argued, reveals the specific concerns about printing and modernity that underpinned his general reflections about time- and space-binding communications. Résumé: Dans la plupart des débats autour de l'oeuvre d'Harold Innis sur les communications, on traite de ses travaux comme s'ils étaient les éléments constituants d'une théorie générale des médias. Aussi, ses analyses de certains médias particuliers sont communément vues comme les applications d'une réflexion générale dont le but est d'expliquer comment le rapport différencié des médias, au temps et à l'espace, influence le développement des sociétés et des civilisations. Dans cet article, il est soutenu qu'en fait, les généralisations d'Innis résultent plutôt de sa volonté d'étudier comment un ensemble particulier de médias, notamment l'imprimé et la publication (avec une attention toute spéciale pour la presse écrite), ont participé à l'avènement de la modernité. Ses préoccupations pour le sujet ressortent de façon évidente dans son imposante monographie inédite History of Communication. Prenant appui sur la chronologie et le caractère inextricable des thèmes de cet ouvrage, l'article examine le point de vue adopté par Innis pour traiter de l'industrie de la presse et de son développement entre la révolution américaine et la moitié du 20e siècle. Il est défendu que la trame historique dépeinte par Innis met bien en lumière le fait que ses préoccupations, eu égard à l'imprimé et à la modernité, sont à la base de sa réflexion générale sur le rapport au temps et à l'espace des différentes formes de communication.

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