Skip to content

We must appraise civilization in relation to its territory and in relation to its duration. The character of the medium of communication tends to create a bias in civilization favourable to an over-emphasis on the time concept or on the space concept and only at rare intervals are the biases offset by the influence of another medium and stability achieved.

— Harold Innis The Bias of Communication (1951)

Another quote →

More quotes by Harold Innis

The discovery of printing in the middle of the fifteenth century implied the beginning of a return to a type of civilization dominated by the eye rather than the ear.

The Bias of Communication (1951)

The present Dominion emerged not in spite of geography but because of it.

The Fur Trade in Canada (1930)

Industrialism implies technology and the cutting of time into precise fragments suited to the needs of the engineer and the accountant.

The Bias of Communication (1951)

The Middle Ages burned its heretics and the modern age threatens them with atom bombs.

The Bias of Communication (1951)

The mixture of the oral and the written traditions in the writings of Plato enabled him to dominate the history of the West.

The Bias of Communication (1951)

All Harold Innis quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Harold Innis (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.