Kiness's Book Harold kiness, a Canadian communication scholar, is McLuhan's teacher. Reading his book Empire and Communication makes people feel that he has thoroughly studied ancient western culture and economy. Media is information. It is indeed a brand-new and novel angle to understand various civilizations through the attributes of media, which also helps us to see the cultural spirit and knowledge dissemination characteristics of each era from another side. Ancient Egyptian scripture 1. Inis analyzed the rise and fall of the empire from the perspective of mass media. In ancient Egypt, the original scriptures were recorded on stones. According to Harold kiness's theory, the media with stone as the carrier is time-biased media, which represents religious regime and religious empire. According to Inis. In Egypt, God is a system, an instrument of endless creativity and an emissary of law and justice. However, when Egyptian civilization was transferred from an absolute and complete democratic organization, the media of knowledge happened an important transfer at this time, that is, from the ancient stone carrier to the relatively light papyrus. During the first dynasty of ancient Egypt, Egyptians discovered papyrus in the Nile Delta. This kind of paper made of plant fiber is light and can be transported for a long distance, so it is easy to write. This writing has also changed from a complex sacred trace to a monk trace. With the significant increase in the number of handwritten characters, when the spiritual culture originally belonging to the upper class is gradually secularized, the monopoly of the highly separated class is broken for the first time, and the ordinary class can also improve its cultural literacy by improving its cultural level. It is this that brought the impact of civilians and foreigners on the privileged class in ancient Egypt, which eventually led to the bias of ancient Egypt towards the media and spatial media in time. The successive decline of Assyrian Empire and Persian Empire in Egypt's papyrus valley failed to solve the relationship between religion and letters. These countries were originally represented by clay tablets as time media, but due to the lack of soil in the north, papyrus, a space medium and soft pen, was introduced, which promoted the rise of flexible alphabet boards. However, the alphabet is beneficial to the development of small cities and countries, but not to the empire. This is because the adaptability of the alphabet to different languages weakens the same idea of imperial rulers trying to smooth out the differences between city-States, increases the difficulty of governing the great empire, and brings fatal harm to large political organizations. The monopoly of traditional Chinese characters used to be the basis of large-scale organizations, but with the emergence of the alphabet and simplified Chinese characters, this monopoly was eventually destroyed by the simplified Chinese character system. Later, the diversity of language and thought made the differences between imperial Chen Bangguo increase, and the organizational relationship became more and more loose, which eventually became a fatal factor in the collapse of the empire. There is an oral tradition in ancient Greece. In Inis's eyes, Greece is the most ideal civilization, and the medium of time and space has reached a model in ancient Greece. However, the ancient Greek city-state civilization could not escape the fate that the balance was broken and the civilization was disintegrated. Since Homer's epic era, Greece has always had a tradition of oral literature with time bias, and later it was introduced with Phoenician letters with spatial bias, which seems to have completed the balance between religious empire and political empire with spatial bias. However, a careful examination shows that this balance lacks mutual restraint and Greek civilization does not have a strong religious view. In Greek mythology, everyone is God, and God is also a human being. Greece does not have a strong tradition of centralization, which is a typical embodiment. It is a classical civilization of ancient Greece, appearing in the form of city-state alliance. Homer's oral communication is one of the standards and sacred beliefs possessed by the Greeks. The achievements of Greek civilization reflect the power of oral communication. Through oral communication, bards, philosophers and dramatists spread monopoly knowledge to the public, which promoted the prosperity of culture. Individualism was awakened. All levels and regions use oral communication to express their views. The Phoenicians who came to do business brought a highly flexible alphabet. And began to widely use Greek communication in Greece, further making Greek culture move towards spatial bias. In the prosperous period of the development of Greek civilization, the popularity of papyrus made more characters recorded, and the flexible phonetic symbols made the written language more and more developed, which was combined with the Greek oral communication system to form a balance between time-oriented and space-oriented communication methods. This balance contributed to the prosperity of Greek civilization and reached its peak in the works of Plato and Socrates. In Greece, written language was originally a simple record of oral language, which was used to write inscriptions and record poems. Later, the dialectical essence of spoken language was lost, that is, oral communication gradually became rigid. As Plato said, words become the shadow of language. Inis believes that the emergence of books and written languages has enabled the development of geography and dialect culture in various parts of Greece. However, with the development of written language, the gap between cities and countries has deepened the shrinkage of traditional thinking methods, and the subsequent thinking methods and rigid spatial deviation of written language communication have overwhelmed the time deviation of oral communication, thus accelerating the pace of the disintegration of Greek civilization. In Inis's view, the deviation of oral tradition cannot be ignored in any case. He believes that in modern society, some spirits of oral communication must be re-mastered, and it is of great significance to base ourselves on the oral debate club, because people's emotions and themes are in debate. Is the focus of debate. Ancient Roman stone tablets were written in the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire, and the Roman Empire had a strong writing based on characters and papyrus technology. The spread of traditional characters promoted the collapse of the system and the rise of the imperial city. The space of writing and papyrus tended to travel, and Rome eventually became a huge empire across Europe, Asia and Africa. But the use of papyrus paper is increasing day by day. It also exposes its weaknesses: fragile and easy to fall off; Another time-biased media is the rise of parchment. Although it is lighter than papyrus, its more complicated manufacturing process and expensive price make it a more lasting time medium. The medium of scrolls is also the reason why Christianity has more advantages than other religions. In 3 13 A.D., Constantine the Great issued the edict of Milan, which confirmed the special status of Christianity and completed the transformation of the Eastern Roman Empire from a political empire to a religious empire. Although the Roman Empire was divided into East Rome and West Rome, the territory was gradually eroded, but it was not until 1453 that the territory of the East Roman Empire was completely annexed. The development of the Eastern Roman Empire depends on the system created by two media. This papyrus and sheepskin system is conducive to the unity of politics and culture. Papyrus is conducive to the development of imperial bureaucracy. The empire and vast territory brought by this system are maintained by parchment, which is conducive to the consolidation of the church class system and plays an important role in powerful Christian organizations. In kiness's view, it was the rise and use of parchment that eventually led to the imbalance of time, media and space media in Europe, and Europe finally entered the dark Middle Ages. Parchment information actually intensified the monopoly of knowledge and made medieval Europe an ignorant era. However, it is precisely because of the time bias of parchment that a large number of works of Greek civilization and Roman Empire were preserved by monasteries and * * * empires in the Middle Ages, and were not lost because of the easy shedding of papyrus. This monopoly was broken only after the popularization of paper and printing, which developed in the commercial field. The production of paper introduced to Europe is a symbol of the commercial revolution, which began around 1275. The use of paper promotes the growth and performance of credit, that is, the use of insurance policies and bills of exchange. Paper replaces the expensive materials used to spread ideas with medium-sized economic materials, which promotes the spread of human thoughts and achievements, and ordinary citizens also have the right to read. Vernacular literature gradually appeared in the form of local dialects. The rise of vernacular literature has accelerated the development of nationalism, which in turn has accelerated the development of vernacular literature. The appearance of paper has caused competition with parchment, and fiber paper is a space-friendly medium. 14th century and15th century, Italy monopolized the paper industry in Europe. Coincidentally, it was at that time that a large number of professional writers appeared in Italy and became the center of the Renaissance. Renaissance Renaissance first rose in Florence, Venice and other places. After all, the dominance of parchment has not been guaranteed, and the organizational bureaucracy of its religious organizations has also collapsed. The Reformation rose all over Europe, and the Bible was printed in vernacular. Ordinary believers must also have a Bible and understand it in their own way. Then, the bourgeois revolution broke out in the Netherlands, and the map of modern European countries gradually took shape. /kloc-in the 0 th and 7 th centuries, the civilization brought by printing successfully challenged the time-oriented civilization of the medieval church. The authority of the church is based on the technology of parchment manuscripts, which intensifies the spatial prejudice of the media, cultivates nationalism, the rise of national languages, the development of bureaucracy, the growth of paper industry and printing industry, and produces modern media such as newspapers. Printing represents the production of mechanical culture based on continuous repetition. This mechanization provided a model for the standardization of large-scale commodity production and support later. It introduced a new civilization knowledge, monopoly was broken, and information sharing became the standard. It is not necessary for experts and scholars to write words, but ordinary journalists can also publish articles in newspapers. Is the power of reading newspapers. Political groups began to use it to manipulate public opinion, and then the development of broadcasting led to new political groups. Radio was used to break political monopoly, and megaphones played a great role in Nazi elections. The vast areas of Germany responded to the call of broadcasting and invited them to join a great German empire, which is probably the role played by broadcasting and newspapers in World War I and World War II. The first world war in the United States in the 1930s, printed matter constituted a complete monopoly of knowledge. Kiness believes that the United States only cares about the present modern paranoia, which comes from printed matter. Printed matter culture is protected by American Constitution, which supports the rapid development of newspaper industry. In the United States, the vigorous development of newspapers and magazines has led to a large-scale monopoly on communication. Inis believes that the formation of this monopoly on communication has caused lasting and sustained systematic damage to cultural activities. Modern newspapers turn news into commodities, which, like other commodities, can be sold at the end of competition and monopoly, so emphasizing change has become the only cultural feature. News that emphasizes excitement, sensation and effect has a selling point, and time culture has been spatialized. Advertisers make full use of the advanced technology in communication to monopolize information and try their best to introduce it to the public. This information monopoly has had far-reaching consequences and influences on the economic system. Then, Inis discusses that the powerful power of American newspaper industry has caused Canada's economic monopoly, and economic monopoly has also caused Canada's economic monopoly. The powerful strength of American newspaper industry first broke the carton and paper trade in Canada, and a large part of pulp and paper products were sold back to Canada, which caused the bombing of Canada by American culture. In fact, as long as we further extend the idea of Inis, we will see that radio and television are actually a greater progress of modern spatial prejudice. Radio and television are easy to move, and electromagnetic waves are far more fleeting than newspapers. Broadcasting eliminates national boundaries, it conquers space with radio waves, and the return of advertising supports American broadcasting, which is more dangerous than the media biased towards space in the past. Although Inis doesn't analyze advertisements in his own way, he still understands it as the vested interests and cultural expansion of the United States in the sense of the latest communication technology. The proximity of Canada's largest population center to American broadcasting transmission facilities is the omnipotent force for the further expansion of American commercialism, and it is inevitable that the United States will occupy the entire English-speaking cultural area. Even in Canada's own broadcasting system, the investigation Committee found that. Of all English-language TV stations in Canada, 53% are produced in the United States, while only 44% are produced in Canada. The new communication technology will inevitably lead to greater concentration of power, so he called it the inherent bias of communication because of this bias. The marginal people in the test flight center area will inevitably be dominated by the center. Serve their interests. The expansion of economy and culture is finally reflected in political and diplomatic strategies. During the post-war recovery period, Canadian citizens, fearing economic depression, adopted the American-style policy of emphasizing military expenditure to ensure full employment. The cold war policy of the United States at home and abroad and the expansion of Canada's economy and culture at that time put great pressure on Canadian political and intellectual circles, forcing them to take the American diplomatic line and suppress domestic subversion. According to Inis, Canadian political activities are suppressed by American foreign policy and are in danger of being distorted. We are in America, and our influence is not good. It can be said that American culture has become something imposed on us by Americans. 2. Characteristics and defects of this theory, although Inis's theory has the risk of technological determinism. But the biased view of the media is really groundbreaking. She also provides us with a new way to understand the world. That is to understand civilization through the media and understand the form of civilization through the carrier of civilization. This idea is undoubtedly enlightening. Time-biased media can be divided into two categories: time-biased media and space-biased media. Time-warp media refers to media that are very durable and difficult to transport in ancient civilization, such as clay, parchment and stone. Space media are not durable, but they are good for transportation, such as papyrus and paper. Oral communication can only spread over short distances, so it is more beneficial to traditional society. This picture makes long-distance transportation possible and is conducive to the geographical expansion of the great empire. According to Inis, every development and progress of the media played an important role in the development of the empire. In the early society that relied on oral communication, oral discourse became the dominant mode of public discourse. Political authority also uses oral discourse as the main way of communication. Later, written words gradually became the main way of elite communication. Early Egypt, Greece and Rome were all based on written culture. In ancient China and ancient Greece, there were signal systems similar to beacon towers. With the invention of new writing materials, writing has become durable and the power of writing has greatly increased. With pen and paper, rulers can rule vast areas, so it is possible to create empires through new media. Kiness believes that the expansion of political empire depends not only on politics and military affairs, but also on the orders from the capital and national center and the management of various places. Time-biased media, as far as culture is concerned, represent history, tradition, religion and other systems; Space-biased media means that the rise and expansion of the empire is related to secular power. Time culture is the cultural space of faith, afterlife interests and moral order, and culture is secular science and material. Obviously, in any culture, these two media concepts are playing a role. A culture can only achieve the balance between time media and space media in a short historical period, such as classical Greece, Renaissance Italy and Elizabethan era, while modern British western culture is in danger of falling apart because it can't handle the persistence of time well. Schematic diagram of innis's thought innis formed this kind of thought similar to media technology determinism, which was related to his academic background and experience. His master's and doctoral degrees, as well as his thesis, are all related to political economy. His doctoral thesis is "History of Canadian Pacific Railway", which discusses the influence of transportation and media technology on imperial rule. During his lifetime, he observed that there were fewer and fewer objective news reports in newspapers and more and more advertisements and features. At the same time, the infiltration of American capital into Canadian culture has influenced Canada with a very shallow cultural foundation. Based on such concerns, kiness compiled the lecture notes of his six lectures at Oxford University into a book, which is his book Empire and Communication. This is an enlightening work and assumption, not a judgmental work; His writing knowledge density is very high, and he can often sum up a literary and historical work or the cultural spirit of an era in one sentence. However, due to his experience, his works inevitably tend to be "media technology determinism". Historical movement is a complicated movement process, not determined by a single factor. It is biased to simply attribute the rise and fall of empire to the rise and fall of media technology, but it is indeed a very good idea to look at cultural inheritance from the perspective of media. However, because of the aggressiveness of American culture in the 20th century, he extended the threat of space media to the previous era, which was suspected of copying mechanically and amplifying the threat. Qin unified Chinese characters III. The adaptation of theory to China's history and culture. Taking the communication history of China as an example, bronzes and bamboo slips are time-biased media that are not conducive to movement, while the oral communication of songs in The Book of Songs and even the scholars who lobby everywhere belong to spatial media. There is an adaptive relationship between the writing itself and the media. For example, due to the difficulty in writing methods and the difficulty in making writing materials, the language in the pre-Qin period was simple and rude, and the small number of words was actually conducive to writing; During the Warring States period, the different writing methods of characters in different countries correspond to the cultural identity and historical identity constructed by their respective countries. History books such as Songs of the Chu and Chronicles are self-centered history books of the Chu and Jin Dynasties. The pre-Qin writing style and the writing carrier complement each other, but the writing in different countries is roughly homologous. Even if the dialects are slightly different, it is still possible to communicate with each other through written language. When he won the Central Plains, Wang said that Zhou De had not declined, and the intention behind it was that the cultural influence of the Western Zhou Dynasty was far from disappearing or retreating. It was this great cultural identity that laid the foundation for later reunification. As a symbol evolved from hieroglyphics, Chinese characters have a very weak relationship between their glyphs and pronunciations. Because of the loss of the relationship between glyphs and pronunciations, glyphs only correspond to word meanings, so people in different dialect areas can communicate in time through Chinese characters, which is quite different from corresponding pronunciations from subtitles and then corresponding semantic letters from pronunciations. The pluralism and diversity of European culture are born from this. Time-biased media, such as parchment and bronzes, have really played the role of monopoly culture because they are not easy to move and precious. So there are many insights in Inis's works. Finally, he also believes that it is problematic for both individuals and society to evolve to the point of being too complicated. After all, everything should not go too far, and it is prescient and feasible to keep the balance between space media and time media. The ancient Greeks' "Don't overdo everything" in Delphi Temple refers to the sense of wholeness and the consciousness of not crossing the line. Because spoken English is timely and lively, spoken English only exists at the moment of hearing. Spoken language can't be fixed, can't be visualized and lacks materiality. In order to keep a sense of an idea or event, people must constantly share, repeat and pass it on. The floating nature of spoken language does not allow him to be stripped and dissected. In tribal times, hearing is worthy of attention. Mcluhan thinks that the life of primitive people is richer than their descendants, because the senses of primitive people emphasize the overall perception of the environment; Primitive people have deeper feelings for social groups and are more aware of the existence of things around them. The auditory environment has also cultivated more enthusiasm and spontaneity in this environment. People's senses are unified, and people's hearing, touch and vision have not been completely divided and differentiated. In the subtle differences between the West, accents are integrated into the solidified national language, but this new sense of unity is accompanied by a sense of isolation and separation. On the material level, the progress of media technology may bring a lot of convenience, but on the other hand, new technologies will always provide Faustian-private transactions with the devil. Technical skills can be given away. Sometimes the creativity of new technology exceeds its destructiveness. On the contrary, its destructiveness sometimes exceeds its creativity, and things are never just one-sided. Right or wrong. Kiness's point of view is difficult to be falsified by quantitative methods, because nothing in his exposition can be confirmed by quantitative methods, regardless of induction or deduction. So the slogan, metaphor and motto of Inis are hard to prove. But such academic achievements can hardly be proved wrong. Kiness's historical analysis strengthened people's concern about the possible cultural impact of new media technology, and inspired his apprentice Mike Luhan. Media is information. In McLuhan's place, the content of the media is delicious steak, but the form of the media is thief. They use steak to distract the watchdog of human brain, and then enter the brain by themselves. This is the subtle influence of media forms on people's thinking. 1. Empire and Communication II. Deviation of communication 3. Gutenberg star 4. The first communication. 25 lectures on communication.