Communication Technologies And Community: Cultural Perspectives

How do the communication technology and media turn the human society to the ideal community? Based on the knowledge sociology, this study focuses on the problem to analyze the media theory and method of Harold Innis and Marshall Mcluhan, who are the founders of media technology theory. This study reviews their historical background, social environment and personal life to give a whole and clear picture of their theory. Furthermore, the following questions are discussed. What role does their technological and social research method in the media research history? Why are Innis and Mcluhan misunderstood and misdeemed? How should we consider this research history to avoid mistakes in our own communication research and take a correct view?Harold Innis thought that the institution was essentially the interactions among all the agents and the communication was base to evoke the interactions. Innis considered the communication and media as agents in the social system to interplay with other agents and social institution. His purpose is to inspect how the communication and media profoundly influence the ability of agents in different society and culture to figure complex institutional environment and social relationship and how the relationships evolve, develop, compete and wither away, in order to illuminate the base, result, characteristic and rule of human civilization history. Taking the plutonium and history research method, Innis study the evolution of communication technology and society, and deconstruct the knowledge monopoly of the power for the crisis of the West. Moreover, Innis hoped the oral community restore and reconstruct the human community.Mcluhan connected the communication with soul and human relation. In his view, the communication is not only the exchange and intercourse, but also whole structure of persons and colonies in the West. For Mcluhan, because social relations, which the communication makes, are essentially mental, sensory and recognizant, the exchange of our recognition and experience change the world and finally the human being realizes the community though electrical media. His background of literary criticism and Catholicism deeply affect Mcluhan's media theory and research view. He paid more attention to personal spirit and social mind, but neglect other wider social factors. So Mcluhan deviated from the power view and consciously stood on the technological Utopia in the American tradition.This study emphasizes on the origin of the Innis's and Mcluhan's median theory and reflects their culture and social research method in the communication research history. In ideology, they use a whole apprehension of interactions and participations to replace the definition of communication and media as instruments. For Innis and Mcluhan, the communication is the intrinsic process of social organization and ligament of society so that the communications relate tightly with the ideal community. This viewpoint echoes the media view of the Chicago school of sociology, which is the European landing point, and delegate the special Canadian thought tradition.In the end of this paper, two questions are raised. What is the purpose of technology? And what is the purpose of communication technology research of us?...