Re: November questions

Leigh Star (lstar who-is-at ucsd.edu)
Tue, 16 Nov 1999 03:18:48 -0800

Hi Phil, Do you have specific references here for Innis? Thanks. Leigh

>My questions were perhaps rhetorical to some degree, but unconsciously so.
>Innis's (1950 1951) insights into the space-time dialectic in social change
>and rupture suggest that the character of specific media (eg clay tablets,
>papyrus, codex, paper, telegraph, bits and bytes) have 'specific
>implications for the nature of knowledge', and for 'knowledge monopolies'
>peculiar to those media. Clearly, the "Great Man" is no more than a
>theological hangover, a not so modern mythology that is undoubtedly still
>alive and as unhealthy as ever. The "Great Man (Men)" always follow in the
>wake of new media, I think.