Page 50 - Cultural Studies and Political Economy

Genealogy of Political Economy 39

selective in the types of messages they transmit, is a more nuanced claim, and
warrants elaboration.
In Innis’mind the space bias of contemporary society, that is, its undue em-
phasis on being, also referred to as present-mindedness—its disregard of tra-
ditions on the one hand, and insouciance concerning the future on the other—
is associated strongly with “mechanized” media, defined as media that result
from applied science. This space bias, not being offset to any large extent by
oral dialectic (his favorite time-binding medium), engenders difficulties in
understanding.
For Innis, the inventions of the mechanical printing press and the paper ma-
chine heralded the onset of mechanization in knowledge production and dis-
tribution. 176 Mechanization in knowledge production (as in other production),
he observed, gives rise to both an “obsession with specialization” 177 and to
dogged pursuit of economies of scale, 178 inducing thereby the rise of the “in-
formation industries.” 179 (Very likely this is the first time this term, now a
commonplace, appeared in print). In referring to mechanization of knowledge
and of media, Innis had in mind not only larger presses and larger print runs,
but as well larger class sizes in universities, 180 the use of mechanical instru-
ments including books as teaching aids, 181 the discouragement of oral dia-
logue and the concomitant decline of critical, creative thought, 182 insistence
on the efficacy of formulaic knowledge, 183 and perhaps most importantly un-
due emphasis on the present and on the transitory (“present-mindedness”).
Citing Laski, Innis wrote sardonically, “Education . . . became the art of
teaching men to be deceived by the printed word.” 184
Innis also insisted that organized force normally controls not just scholar-
ship and education, but also popular culture, which he sometimes termed “the
vernacular.” He wrote: “The success of organized force is dependent on an ef-
fective combination of . . . the vernacular in public opinion with technology
[or media of communication] and science.” 185 Indeed, he claimed, once sci-
ence had enfeebled religion “as an anchorage,” the state (and, we could add,
corporations) became “more dependent on cultural development.” 186 It is in
the area of “cultural development” that Innis’ analysis and commentaries on
press systems are particularly poignant and merge with Adorno’s analysis of
the culture industry.
“Freedom of the press” as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, Innis sug-
gested dryly, narrowed the “marketplace of ideas.” 187 Innis’ coupling of free-
dom of the press with the growth of monopolies of knowledge on the face of
it seems absurd, and so warrants further scrutiny. Innis had several things
in mind. First, freedom of the press meant, in part, freedom of press owners
to do as they pleased—even to combine into the monopolistic Associated
Press news system and to enter into restrictive covenants with the telegraph