Use Innis’s Concepts of “Time-Biased” and “Space-Biased” Media and His Ideas on Oral and Written Media to Analyse the Internet
The 20th century has witnessed dramatic developments in the history of media communications as well as human society. During the first half of the last century, electronic media such as the telegraph, radio and television to name a few were invented and became prevalent. Afterwards, the internet came into being and developed at an unprecedented rate to the point where it is now widely accepted that human history has entered into an information age. As claimed by a number of scholars, the appearance of new types of media can bring about dramatic influences on living conditions. Among them, Harold Innis, pioneer in this area of communication studies, is influential, firstly by employing two dimensions to media, namely time and space, and further, exploring how media shapes the formation of the essence and development of a civilisation. This essay will apply Innis’s communication theories on the biases of communication, oral and written media and monopoly of knowledge in order to analyse the Internet. In the first place, according to Innis, media can be divided into two types, which are time-biased and space-biased media, determined by its physical characteristics (Innis, 1991). Time-based media tends to be heavy and not portable so it is relatively stable, such as stone and clay whereas space-biased media are light and easy to transport, such as papyrus and paper (ibid.). As a consequence of this, Time-biased media has the ability to store information for a relatively long duration of time in a certain area, which encourages the formation of communities and social hierarchies (ibid.). Moreover, civilisations which are dominated by time-biased media think highly of traditions, community and morals (ibid.). A good illustration of this is Egypt. The pyramids left thousands of years ago can be seen as a symbol of their history and hierarchy at that time (Innis, 1950). Comparatively, space-biased media allows for expansion of space but is not able to hold this
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