Communication And Empire

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Empire and Communications" by Harold Adams Innis. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Filling in a key chapter in communications history, Dwayne R. Winseck and Robert M. Pike offer an in-depth examination of the rise of the “global media” between 1860 and 1930. They analyze the connections between the development of a global communication infrastructure, the creation of national telegraph and wireless systems, and news agencies and the content they provided. Conventional histories suggest that the growth of global communications correlated with imperial expansion: an increasing number of cables were laid as colonial powers competed for control of resources. Winseck and Pike argue that the role of the imperial contest, while significant, has been exaggerated. They emphasize how much of the global media system was in place before the high tide of imperialism in the early twentieth century, and they point to other factors that drove the proliferation of global media links, including economic booms and busts, initial steps toward multilateralism and international law, and the formation of corporate cartels. Drawing on extensive research in corporate and government archives, Winseck and Pike illuminate the actions of companies and cartels during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, in many different parts of the globe, including Africa, Asia, and Central and South America as well as Europe and North America. The complex history they relate shows how cable companies exploited or transcended national policies in the creation of the global cable network, how private corporations and government agencies interacted, and how individual reformers fought to eliminate cartels and harmonize the regulation of world communications. In Communication and Empire, the multinational conglomerates, regulations, and the politics of imperialism and anti-imperialism as well as the cries for reform of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth emerge as the obvious forerunners of today’s global media.

In a penetrating account of the evolution of British intelligence gathering in India, C. A. Bayly shows how networks of Indian spies were recruited by the British to secure military, political and social information about their subjects. He also examines the social and intellectual origins of these 'native informants', and considers how the colonial authorities interpreted and often misinterpreted the information they supplied. It was such misunderstandings which ultimately contributed to the failure of the British to anticipate the rebellions of 1857. The author argues, however, that even before this, complex systems of debate and communication were challenging the political and intellectual dominance of the European rulers.

An exploration of the political economy of media, and to what extent global communications and popular entertainment continue to serve elite interests. In Communications Media, Globalization, and Empire, an international team of experts analyzes and critiques the political economy of media communications worldwide. Their analysis takes particular account of the sometimes conflicting pressures of globalization and “neo-imperialism.” The first is commonly defined as the dismantling of barriers to trade and cultural exchange and responds significantly to lobbying of the world’s largest corporations, including media corporations. The second concerns US pursuit of national security interests as response to “terrorism,” at one level and, at others, to intensifying competition among both nations and corporations for global natural resources.

From the mid-sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century Russia was transformed from a moderate-sized, land-locked principality into the largest empire on earth. How did systems of information and communication shape and reflect this extraordinary change? Information and Mechanisms of Communication in Russia, 1600-1850 brings together a range of contributions to shed some light on this complex question. Communication networks such as the postal service and the gathering and circulation of news are examined alongside the growth of a bureaucratic apparatus that informed the government about its country and its people. The inscription of space is considered from the point of view of mapping and the changing public ‘graphosphere’ of signs and monuments. More than a series of institutional histories, this book is concerned with the way Russia discovered itself, envisioned itself and represented itself to its people. Innovative and scholarly, this collection breaks new ground in its approach to communication and information as a field of study in Russia. More broadly, it is an accessible contribution to pre-modern information studies, taking as its basis a country whose history often serves to challenge habitual Western models of development. It is important reading not only for specialists in Russian Studies, but also for students and non-Russianists who are interested in the history of information and communications.

Jill Hills picks up from her pathbreaking study The Struggle for Control of Global Communication: The Formative Century to continue her examination of the political, technological, and economic forces at work in the global telecommunications market from World War II to the World Trade Organization agreement of 1997. In the late twentieth century, focus shifted from the creation and development of global communication markets to their intense regulation. The historical framework behind this control--where the market was regulated, by what institution, controlled by what power, and to whose benefit--masterfully complements Hills's analysis of power relations within the global communications arena. Hills documents attempts by governments to direct, replace, and bypass international telecommunications institutions. As she shows, the results have offered indirect control over foreign domestic markets, government management of private corporations, and government protection of its own domestic communication market. Hills reveals that the motivation behind these powerful, regulatory efforts on person-to-person communication lies in the unmatched importance of communication in the world economy. As ownership of communications infrastructure becomes more valuable, governments have scrambled to shape international guidelines. Hills provides insight into struggles between U.S. policymakers and the rest of the world, illustrating the conflict between a growing telecommunications empire and sovereign states that are free to implement policy changes. Freshly detailing the interplay between U.S. federal regulation and economic power, Hills fosters a deep understanding of contemporary systems of power in global communications.

Challenges traditional views of the Qin dynasty as an oppressive regime by revealing cooperative aspects of its governance. This revealing book challenges longstanding notions of the Qin dynasty, China’s first imperial dynasty (221–206 BCE). The received history of the Qin dynasty and its founder is one of cruel tyranny with rule through fear and coercion. Using a wealth of new information afforded by the expansion of Chinese archaeology in recent decades as well as traditional historical sources, Charles Sanft concentrates on cooperative aspects of early imperial government, especially on the communication necessary for government. Sanft suggests that the Qin authorities sought cooperation from the populace with a publicity campaign in a wide variety of media—from bronze and stone inscriptions to roads to the bureaucracy. The book integrates theory from anthropology and economics with early Chinese philosophy and argues that modern social science and ancient thought agree that cooperation is necessary for all human societies.

The third edition of International Communication examines the profound changes that have taken place, and are continuing to take place at an astonishing speed, in international media and communication. Building on the success of previous editions, this book maps out the expansion of media and telecommunications corporations within the macro-economic context of liberalisation, deregulation and privitisation. It then goes on to explore the impact of such growth on audiences in different cultural contexts and from regional, national and international perspectives. Each chapter contains engaging case studies which exemplify the main concepts and arguments.

Banks defines and applies the concept of communications in a far broader context than previous historical studies of communication, encompassing a range of human activity from sailing routes, to mapping, to presses, to building roads and bridges. He employs a comparative analysis of early modern French imperialism, integrating three types of overseas possessions usually considered separately - the settlement colony (New France), the tropical monoculture colony (the French Windward Islands), and the early Enlightenment planned colony (Louisiana) - offering a work of synthesis that unites the historiographies and insights from three formerly separate historical literatures. Banks challenges the very notion that a concrete "empire" emerged by the first half of the eighteenth century; in fact, French colonies remained largely isolated arenas of action and development. Only with the contraction and concentration of overseas possessions after 1763 on the Plantation Complex did a more cohesive, if fleeting, French empire first emerge.