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Media, Structures, and Power provides a sense of Babe's trajectory of thought over several decades, as well as his key role in the development of the communications field in Canada. - Kevin Dowler, Department of Communication Studies, York University
"This book addresses the notorious split between the two fields of cultural studies and political economy. Drawing on the works of Harold Innis, Theodor Adorno, Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, E. P. Thompson, and other major theorists in the two fields, Robert E. Babe shows that political economy can be reconciled to certain aspects of cultural studies, particularly with regard to cultural materialism." "Uniting the two fields has proven to be a complex undertaking though it makes practical sense, given the close interaction between political economy and cultural studies. Babe examines the evolution of cultural studies over time and its changing relationship with political economy. The intersections between the two fields center around three subjects: the cultural biases of money, the time/space dialectic, and the dialectic of information."--BOOK JACKET.
Media, Structures, and Power is a collection of the scholarly writing of Canada's leading communication and media studies scholar, Robert E. Babe. Spanning almost four decades of scholarship, the volume reflects the breadth of Babe's work, from media and economics to communications history and political economy. Babe famously characterized Canadian scholars' distinctive contribution to knowledge as uniquely historical, holistic, and dialectical. The essays in Media, Structures, and Power reflect this particular strength. With a clarity of vision, Babe critiques mainstream economics, Canadian government policy, and postmodernist thought in social science. Containing introductions and contributions by other prominent scholars, this volume situates Babe's work within contemporary scholarship and underscores the extent to which he is one of Canada's most prescient thinkers. His interdisciplinary analyses will remain timely and influential well into the twenty-first century.
Containing introductions and contributions by other prominent scholars, this volume situates Babe's work within contemporary scholarship and underscores the extent to which he is one of Canada's most prescient thinkers.
Babe examines the writings of ten major thinkers in the context of their physical and cultural environments and finds that there is indeed a mode of theorizing that is quintessentially Canadian.
This book proposes that infusing mainline economics with more expansive and realistic conceptions of information/communication transforms static neoclassicism into evolutionary political economy. It results in modes of analysis that, when applied through policy, can lead to a sustainable future.
Political Economy in the Modern State is Harold Innis’s transitional and, in some respects, his most transformative book. Completed in 1946, it is a collection of fifteen chapters plus a remarkable Preface selected and crafted to address four main themes: the problem of power and peace in the post-War era; the ascent of specialized and mechanized forms of knowledge involving, most particularly, the media, the state, and the academy; the crisis facing civilization and, more generally, the modern penchant for unreflexive short-term thinking in the face of mounting contradictions; and Innis’s growing focus on what would be called media bias. In this new edition, editors Robert E. Babe and Edward A. Comor provide not only a general introduction to Innis’s largely forgotten book but also dedicated introductions to each of its fifteen chapters and a comprehensive index. Together, Babe and Comor demonstrate how Innis’s volume reflects a shift in Innis’s focus, away from analytical relativism towards, instead, a reflexive search for objective truths.
Wilbur Schramm and Noam Chomsky Meet Harold Innis is an original, critical, in-depth analysis of the media and communication thought of Canada’s most highly acclaimed scholar, Harold Adams Innis. Even in Canada, however, Innis’s writings until now have been only partially cited and interpreted: Innis is usually stereotyped as being merely an economic historian fixated on previous civilizations, whereas in fact he was an astute analyst whose main concerns were with present problems and future trajectories. In the United States, meanwhile, Innis’s media and communication writings have been quite neglected and even denigrated. Drawing on Innis’s less frequently cited work, including his...
Although there is a burgeoning interest among economists in `information economics', much of the literature adopts a reductionist conceptualization of information, defining it exclusively as reduction in uncertainty, exploring the implications of imperfect information on markets. This neoclassical treatment obscures major interrelations between economic and communicatory processes. Drawing on a range of distinguished scholarship from both the economic and communication studies disciplines, Information and Communication in Economics explores the implications for economic analysis and our understanding of economic processes of employing a more complete conceptualization of information: information as locus of power; information as evolutionary agent; and media systems as devices for control.
This study provides Canada's first comprehensive, integrated treatment of the emergence and development of key communication sectors: telegraph telephones, cable TV, broadcasting, communication satellites, and electronic publishing. By focusing on real institutions, actual (and frequently predatory) business practices, and law and regulatory policies, in both historical and contemporary perspectives, Babe helps demystify current communication issues. Stressing the flexibility of communication 'technologies' on the one hand, and the element of corporate power on the other, Babe reintroduces the principle of corporate/governmental responsibility for communication outcomes, a principle that has been largely drowned out by the shrill cries of 'Information Revolution.'