International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Harold Adams Innis (1894–1952) was a Canadian economic historian turned communication theorist, whose research focused on the role of the medium in communication processes. His work – historical in method (→  Media History ) and ecumenical in scope – demonstrated the centrality of communications in social, political, and cultural development. Together with his junior colleague, →  Marshall McLuhan , he is considered a founding father of a medium-focused school of communication theory, variously known as the “Toronto School,” →  “media ecology,” or →  “medium theory.” It holds that communications media are the key to understanding the co-development of mind, culture, and society. Born in 1894 and raised on an Ontario farm, Innis earned his BA and MA degrees from McMaster University. After recuperating from an injury suffered in World War I, he completed a doctorate in economics, on the Canadian Pacific Railroad, at the University of Chicago in 1920, and began teaching at the University of Toronto. He would spend his entire academic career there, first as professor of political economy, then as chair of the department, and later as dean of the graduate school. Widely hailed as Canada's foremost economic historian and political economist, he was active, as royal commissioner, in shaping Canada's transportation and economic policy. Innis passed away in his prime, in 1952, while ... log in or subscribe to read full text