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Keeping the Portals Open: Poster vs. Innis 191

9. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 126.
10. He writes: “Language is not simply a tool for expression; it is also a structure
that defines the limits of communication and shapes the subjects who speak.” Poster,
Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 128.
11. “The habits of social analysis run deep. It is difficult to escape from old con-
ceptual patterns, from the long-held assumption that in the field of society action has
priority over language. The theorists who established the contours of the study of so-
ciety—Marx, Weber, and more ambiguously Emile Durkheim—all gave precedence
to action over language.” Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 126.
12. “Poststructuralists point to various ways in which language materially affects
the relation of the theorist to his or her discourse and the ways in which the social field
is composed of linguistic phenomena.” Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructural-
ism, 4.
13. The older and more usual pairing is thought vs. action. Plato, through the para-
ble of the cave, urged a movement from action to thought (contemplation of ideal
forms). Marx promoted the opposite, writing: “The philosophers have only inter-
preted the world differently; the point is, however, to change it.” Since language is a
necessary tool for thought, Poster here is actually urging readers to become even fur-
ther removed from action than the expression, “from action to thought,” would imply,
his poststructuralist position being light years from both Marx and Plato. See, gener-
ally, Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future (1954, reprint, New York: Penguin,
2006), 13, 18.
14. Poster, The Mode of Information, 62–63.
15. Poster, The Mode of Information, 58.
16. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 13.
17. Poster, The Mode of Information, 2.
18. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 9.
19. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 128.
20. Poster, The Mode of Information, 6.
21. Poster, The Mode of Information, 11.
22. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 79–80.
23. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 85.
24. Poster, The Mode of Information, 15.
25. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 15.
26. Poster, The Mode of Information, 15.
27. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 26.
28. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 107. This definition can be
compared to the one forwarded by Lazarsfeld and discussed in chapter 1.
29. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 116.
30. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 106.
31. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 106.
32. Poster, Cultural Theory and Poststructuralism, 126.
33. Jody Berland, not addressing Poster specifically, argues that Innis differs from
postmodernist positions in two major respects: first, he does not focus on representa-
tions as do postmodernists, and second he is much more materialist. Jody Berland,