Culture, Communications, and Dependency: The Tradition of H.A. Innis

Abstract

In March 1978, Simon Fraser University hosted a symposium on the thought of Harold Adams Innis, the late great Canadian social scientist. I believe that even those who organized the meeting and many of the participants would agree that Innis would not have taken kindly to a project of this kind, where his own work might be in danger of overcommendation, or worse, of unthinking adulation. Nevertheless, the organizers were quite right when they assessed the need for such a conference; first, because they recognized the unfortunate loss to Canadian and international scholarship through the general neglect (except among a handful of enthusiastic specialists and followers) of Innis' innovative and insightful concepts; and second, because it was time to examine Innis' legacy as whole cloth, incorporating both streams of his thought - i.e., Canadian political economy and communication history and theory.