How Prometheus Is Bound: Applying the Innis Method of Communications Analysis to the Internet

Abstract

This article argues that Harold Innis' method of communications analysis is sufficiently modular that it can be applied to a medium not addressed in his own work - the Internet. It further argues that Innis developed this method because he believed each new medium faces us with a moral choice, and that his concern for the space/time balance represents a moral level of analysis focused on a medium's implications for freedom and humanism. Once applied to the Internet, this analytical method identifies reasons to be concerned for the social and political impact of this technology.