Monopolies of knowledge 1

Monopolies of knowledge

Innis pointed to the Hearst newspaper chain andits handful of powerful rivals as constituting a

modern monopoly of knowledge.[1]

The Canadian economic historian Harold Innis developed the conceptof monopolies of knowledge in his later writings on communications.Innis gave no precise definition of the term, but did suggest that he wasextending the concept of monopoly in the field of economics toknowledge in general.[2] Monopolies of knowledge arise when rulingclasses maintain their political power through their control of keycommunications technologies.[3] An example of this occurs in ancientEgypt where a complex writing system conferred a monopoly ofknowledge on literate priests and scribes. Mastering the art of writingand reading required long periods of apprenticeship and instruction,confining knowledge to this powerful class.[4]

This theory suggests that monopolies of knowledge gradually suppressnew ways of thinking. Entrenched hierarchies become increasinglyrigid and out of touch with social realities. Challenges to elite powerare often likely to arise on the margins of society. The arts, forexample, are often seen as a means of escape from the sterility ofconformist thought.[5]

Innis's warnings about monopolies of knowledge take on particularurgency in the years immediately preceding his death in 1952. In hislater writings, he argued that industrialization and mass media had led to the mechanization of a culture in whichmore personal forms of oral communication were radically devalued.[6] "Reading is quicker than listening," Inniswrote in 1948. "The printing press and the radio address the world instead of the individual."[7]

Origins of the conceptWhen discussing the monopolies of knowledge, Innis focuses much of his concern on the United States, where hefeared that mass-circulation newspapers and magazines along with privately owned broadcasting networks hadundermined independent thought and local cultures and rendered audiences passive in the face of what he calls the"vast monopolies of communication."[8] James W. Carey notes that Innis worried about the centralized control ofinformation and entertainment by advertising-driven media. "The very existence of a commodity such as'information' and an institution called 'media' make each other necessary," Carey writes. "More people spend moretime dependent on the journalist, the publisher, and the program director. Every week they wait for Time[magazine]."[9]

In order to fashion his concept of monopolies of knowledge, Innis drew on several fields of study, includingeconomics, history, communications and technology.

Economics and the price systemIn his 1938 essay, The Penetrative Powers of the Price System, Innis anticipates his later concept of monopolies ofknowledge. Although he does not precisely define what he means by the "price system," he does show how trade andtechnology shaped modern industrial economies.[10] Innis suggests, for example, that the shift from coal and iron tooil and electricity had profound implications that no one in industrial societies could escape. He mentions the growthof cities with people living in large apartment buildings made possible by developments in electrical equipment onthe one hand, and the dispersal of populations over wide metropolitan areas as a result of the automobile and pavedroads, on the other.

Monopolies of knowledge 2

The inhabitants of modern industrial societies even eat differently than their more rural forebears. "The demands ofpopulation in congested areas, under the direction of scientific work in nutrition," Innis writes, "have shifted fromcarbohydrates to vitamins or from wheat to dairy products, live-stock, fruits and vegetables."[11] At the same time, headds, city dwellers are influenced by cheap, mass-circulation newspapers which peddle political stereotypes alongwith department store ads.[12] For Innis, the industrial economy monopolizes how people live, work, communicateand think.[13]

History and classical studiesInnis's concept of monopolies of knowledge was also influenced by the scholar Solomon Gandz who published alengthy paper in 1939 on the significance of the oral tradition in the development of civilizations.[14] Gandzadvanced the idea that the control of language in the oral tradition was grounded in religious institutions whichensured a civilization's continuity by preserving its traditions. At the same time, however, religious elites oftenshared their power with political elites who controlled the use of military force, thereby ensuring a civilization'ssuccess in conquering and holding territory.[15]

Innis incorporated these ideas in his concept of time-biased and space-biased media. He argued that civilizations andempires flourished when there was a balance between time- and space-biased media.[16] The triumph of one type ofmedium over the other, however, undermined stability demonstrating that unbalanced monopolies of knowledgecould gradually lead to the decline and fall of civilizations and empires.[17]Innis argued this was, in fact, happeningto Western civilization which had become dangerously unbalanced partly because of the monopoly of knowledgeexercised by space-biased communications technologies such as the daily newspaper.[18] For Innis, the newspaperreflected an obsession with what he termed "present-mindedness."[19] Newspapers and the news agencies that servedthem could transmit large amounts of information over long distances, but this speed of transmission and theemphasis on immediacy obliterated continuity and memory. "Time," Innis wrote, "has been cut into pieces the lengthof a day's newspaper."[20] The advent of electronic media—radio and later, television—added more speed andimmediacy contributing cumulatively to the erasure of cultural memory. Moreover, these space-biased media couldbe used by political elites to mobilize large populations—as in Nazi Germany—to support disastrous wars ofconquest.[21]

Significance of writingThere is a special emphasis on monopolies of knowledge that is based on the control of written media. "We canconveniently divide the history of the West into the writing and printing periods," Innis remarks in Empire andCommunications.[22]

Writing"The sword and the pen worked together," Innis writes. "The written record signed, sealed, and swiftly transmittedwas essential to military power and the extension of government. Small communities were written into large statesand states were consolidated into empire." Innis adds that the monarchies of Egypt and Persia as well as the Romanempire "were essentially products of writing."[23]

Rome's adoption of papyrus facilitated the spread of writing and the growth of bureaucratic administration needed togovern vast territories.[24] The efficiency of the alphabet strengthened monopolies of knowledge in a variety ofancient empires.[25] Innis warns about the power of writing to create mental "grooves" which determine "thechannels of thought of readers and later writers."[26]

Monopolies of knowledge 3

Printing and paperInnis believed that the printing press was a decisive invention in the history of the West. Lewis Mumford pointed outthat printing was "a completely mechanical achievement...the type for all future instruments of reproduction: for theprinted sheet...was the first completely standardized product."[27] Thus, for Innis, the printing press and theaccompanying medium of paper ushered in not just the mechanization that would become characteristic of anindustrial society based on mass production, but also the mechanization of knowledge itself. By that, Innis meantthat printing led to the production of beliefs and practices that reinforced monopolies of knowledge characteristic ofindustrial culture.[28]

An example of this can be seen in the large-scale production of newsprint in the 19th century that had far-reachingeffects. Newsprint fostered the development of big newspaper plants that needed larger numbers of readers to deliverto big advertisers such as department stores. Department stores themselves reflected new ways of marketing to risingnumbers of city dwellers. To attract more readers, newspaper proprietors began to run comics and to rely on the"excitement and sensationalism" of foreign wars. Such coverage influenced British and American foreign policies,sometimes disastrously.[29]

Innis also warned that printed books could produce conformity of thought akin to the regimentation of workers inindustrial factories.[30] He repeats the Biblical commandment against worshiping graven images, but suggests that inour unconscious society, this prohibition is not interpreted to apply to the printed word.[31]

According to William Kuhns, societies dominated by print media regard only printed knowledge as "essentiallyvalid." Textbook publishers exert a huge influence on education at all levels while schools and universities refuse toaccept knowledge in other than printed forms. "The monopoly of knowledge protects its own with wary vigilance,"Kuhns writes.[32] Or in Mumford's words, with the advent of the printed book, learning "became book-learning."[33]

Paul Levinson writes that "[l]iteracy probably constitutes the most significant monopoly of knowledge in humanhistory."[34] He adds, however, that in open, democratic societies, public education systems are dedicated to breakingthis monopoly by teaching students how to read and write, thereby giving them full access to printed knowledge.[35]

New mediaWe can look at the Internet as being a factor in creating knowledge monopolies. Those who have the skills to use thetechnology have the power to choose what information is communicated. The significance of the Internet in thecreation of these monopolies, in more recent years, has been somewhat diminished due to increased knowledge andawareness of how to use the technology. At the same time, the ever-increasing complexity of digital technologiesstrengthens monopolies of knowledge as the New York Times points out in a series which began on April 27, 2009,called The Digital Arms Race:

[T]he Pentagon has commissioned military contractors to develop a highly classified replica of theInternet of the future. The goal is to simulate what it would take for adversaries to shut down thecountry’s power stations, telecommunications and aviation systems, or freeze the financial markets — inan effort to build better defenses against such attacks, as well as a new generation of online weapons.[36]

Wherever new media arise, so too do monopolies of knowledge concerning how to use the technologies to reinforcethe power and control of elite groups.

Monopolies of knowledge 4

Notes[1] Innis, Harold. (1951) The Bias of Communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 179-180.[2] Heyer,Paul. (2003) Harold Innis. Toronto: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., p.76.[3] Watson, Alexander John. (2006). Marginal Man: The Dark Vision of Harold Innis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p.357.[4] Innis, Harold. (2007) Empire and Communications. Toronto: Dundurn Press, p.44.[5] Innis, Harold. (1980) The Idea File of Harold Adams Innis, introduced and edited by William Christian. Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, pp.xii-xiii.[6][6] Heyer, pp.80-81.[7][7] Innis (Bias), p.191.[8] Innis, Harold. (1952) The Strategy of Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 14-15.[9] Carey, James W. (1992) Communication As Culture: Essays on Media and Society, p.168.[10][10] Watson, pp.217-218.[11] Innis, Harold. (1956) Essays in Canadian Economic History, edited by Mary Q. Innis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p.263.[12][12] Innis (Essays), pp.266-267.[13] See, Kroker, Arthur. (1984) Technology and the Canadian Mind. Montreal: New World Perspectives, pp.120-121.[14][14] Watson, p.353.[15][15] Watson, pp.358-361.[16][16] Innis (Empire), p.27.[17][17] See, for example, Innis's discussion of the priestly monopoly over writing that undermined the Egyptian empire. Innis (Empire), pp.44-45.[18][18] Innis (Empire), p.196.[19][19] Innis (Bias), p.87.[20] Innis, (1954) "Concept of Monopoly and Civilization." Explorations, No. 3 quoted in Carey, p.163.[21][21] Watson, p.410.[22][22] Innis (Empire), p.27.[23][23] Innis (Empire), p.30.[24][24] Innis (Empire), pp.120-122.[25][25] Innis (Empire), p.77.[26][26] Innis (Bias), p.11.[27] Mumford, Lewis (1946) Technics and Civilization. London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., p.135.[28] See, Innis, Harold (1980) The Idea File of Harold Adams Innis introduced and edited by William Christian, Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, p.xiii.[29][29] Innis (Bias), pp.77-78.[30] See Housser, Signe, Harold A. Innis and Michel Foucault: A Communications Perspective on Knowledge Construction (http:/ / ir. lib. sfu.

ca/ bitstream/ 1892/ 7718/ 1/ b16625535. pdf), MA Thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1984, pp.66-67. Housser draws on The Idea File ofHarold Adams Innis. 2/42, p.12.

[31] Innis (Idea File), 1/1, p.3. Innis writes: "Thou shalt not worship any graven image—not interpreted to mean the printed word or those wordsthemselves.

[32] Kuhns, William. (1971) The Post-Industrial Prophets: Interpretations of Technology. New York: Weybright and Talley, pp.154-155.[33][33] Mumford, p.136.[34] Levinson, Paul. (1997) The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution. New York: Routledge, p.12.[35][35] Levinson, pp.12-13.[36] http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2009/ 04/ 28/ us/ 28cyber. html?pagewanted=all

References• "Monopolies of Knowledge" in Old Messengers, New Media: The Legacy of Innis and McLuhan (http:/ / www.

collectionscanada. gc. ca/ innis-mcluhan/ index-e. html), a virtual museum exhibition at Library and ArchivesCanada

• "Monopolies of Knowledge in Canadian Communication Studies: The Case of Feminist Approaches" in TheCanadian Journal of Communication (http:/ / www. cjc-online. ca/ viewarticle. php?id=446& layout=html), byGertrude J. Robinson at McGill University

Levinson, Paul (1997) "The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution." Published byRoutledge, New York.

Article Sources and Contributors 5

Article Sources and ContributorsMonopolies of knowledge  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=555568606  Contributors: Alybe, AndrewHowse, Andrewaskew, Bearcat, Borock, Bwark, Chris the speller,Constantinidesmas214, Gregbard, Lquilter, Malcolma, Oli Filth, Oscar, Smobri, Tom Reedy, Toppmas229, Tvoz

Image Sources, Licenses and ContributorsFile:HEARST2.JPG  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:HEARST2.JPG  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Hearst publishing

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