A Research On The Herald Of Communication Technology School Harold.A. Innis’s Communication Theories

Accompanied by the surging wave of the information revolution of the20thcentury, the rapid change of communication media and the consequent culturaldiversion, in academia, serious research has been doing on the emerging third School–the School of Media Ecology. Media analysis as the research category, the Schoolaims to explain the interaction among the spread of technology changes, theevolution of media forms and the structure of benefits, social systems, and thecontrol of discourses. A batch of scholars with brilliant achievements have emergedin this field, to trace the theoretical source of Media Ecology Science, thestar-crossed Harold A. Innis will appear in the history of Communication Science.Harold A. Innis was the first generation of the standard-bearer of the school ofmedia ecology, he proposed the famous " Bias of Communication", tried to introducethe Economics and Communication to the discourse analysis model of history andbroke a new land starting from the media forms, dynamically interpreted the changeof social structure and the transition of cultural systems which were rendered by theevolution of media forms. This paper aims to use the communication ideology ofInnis as the research object, from various aspects of his academic study, ideologicalorigins and social backgrounds to explain his core argument of communicationscience, and on this basis, to interpret his originality of communication researchapproaches, the integration of communication research fields and the humanity ofcommunication research concerns. Innis utilized the evolution of communicationtechnology as a breakthrough point, studied the history of world civilization, whichthen he was labeled as “technological determinism”, this paper considers Innis not atechnological determinist, and gives explanation in the paper.The communication ideology of Innis was full of enlightenment, providing arich and fertile platform for the formation of the communication ideology ofMarshall Mcluhan, Neil Postman and James W. Carey. As a determined Canadiannationalists and pessimist, the communication ideology of Innis was inevitably caught in the tangle of technical tendencies and localization. This paper will alsoobserve and study the flaws and imperfections of Innis’s communication ideologywith the hope of further understanding the communication ideology of Innis.