Empires And Space-Binding Media

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Empires, according to Innis, are large overpowering rulers in the form of a country or a city who have branched out and administer other dependencies—such as the British Empire, who ruled over many countries including Canada, India, and Australia. For Canada specifically, staples—natural resources such as timber and fish—were extracted and exported back to the United Kingdom. Media and Technology, in the sense of empires, refer to the methods by which these empires could spread their rule over other countries—these methods being space- and time-binding media. According to Innis, the relationship between media and empires is that space- and time-binding media were the very reason countries had the power to contact, to invade, to communicate, and to expand …show more content…

Monuments, clay tablets, and storytelling are all time-binding media, as they allow an empire to durably and physically preserve their rule; though, imbalances between these two forms of media were also the reason empires lost their reach and fell. An imbalance favouring space-binding media often led to the extremities of an empire losing touch with the empire’s centre and falling out of line; space-bound empires often favoured systems of government “less hierarchical in character” (Innis, 27). An imbalance favouring time-binding media often led to minimal individualization and the development of “hierarchical types of institutions” (Innis, 27). Space- and time-binding media both have their implications and biases in the sustainability of an empire, and this is where the idea of effective communication and media balance comes into play—on page 26, Innis states: “the effective government of large areas depends to a very important extent on the efficacy of communication”, and that, on page 27, “large scale political organizations such as empires must be considered from the standpoint of two-dimensions, those of space and

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