"PontyPool": Mediatization and the Space/Time Bias.

Hi everyone, 

I would like to expand upon our discussion of PontyPool by answering the second question – 

Think about the plague of Pontypool in terms of Harold Innis’ analysis of ancient empires and media forms. Is the vector of infection of the language virus in Pontypool an example of time bias or space bias? 

 

This brings me back to the day in the lecture when we exhausted the discussion of time and space, which is a common topic for communication scholars, but even that day in the lecture, we brought up Innis’ bias on time and space. He says, 

The medium of communication has an important influence on the dissemination over time and space… According to its characteristics (it) may be better suited to the dissemination of knowledge over time than over space, particularly if the medium is heavy and durable and not suited to transportation… or to the dissemination of knowledge over space than over time, particularly if the medium is light and easily transported (Innis, "The Bias of Communication"). 

To dig deeper into the space/time bias, I did some research on what other theorists have to say about Innis’ work. One point which I think is valuable is brought up by Megan Mullen (2009) in her writing on Innis’ Empire and Communications. She mentions the idea that it is essential for both the time and space bias to be present in any civilization for it to prosper (p. 176). With this in mind, Innis described that empires were powerful for their development and use of different writing systems. Through such systems, this power was translated through oral tradition and often their connectedness to religious beliefs. As I understand it, according to Innis, the time bias is something that can withstand a life of eternity and is never changing. An example of this can be similar to writing in stone or the pyramids in Egypt. Nowadays, old media is often replaced by new media over and over. This is where the space bias comes in as it is made up of perishable media that is described as light, changeable, and easily transferrable. As Mullen, mentions, though, these two biases still co-exist with one another to transfer information. 

To conclude and answer this question, Harold Innis’ emphasis on speech would make the language virus of Pontypool favour the space bias. I argue this for its rapid changes and “mediatization”, which I will answer further in the next question. Before moving on though I would like to specify that the space bias is important here as the electronics Pontypool uses to communicate can be replaced over and over, therefore separating the media from the message. 

The next question that I would like to translate into answering is – 

Radio, telephone, and electronic amplification play an important part in sustaining the virus. How can these medium(s) be understood as mediatized forms of orality?

 

There was another reading that we discussed in the lecture by Couldry and Hepp surrounding mediatization. Overall, the term refers to the intricate ways in which media are fundamentally woven into the texture of everyday life. They state, “This deep consistent and self-reinforcing role of media in the construction of the social world is to say that the social work is not just mediated but mediatized” (Couldry & Hepp, p. 15). This is important in the overall nature of the film, which is based solely on the reliance on technology. This idea can so obviously be applied to the technologies that are used in Pontypool. The telephone, the radio, and sound effects can be mediated forms of orality – referring to communicating through literacy or technology – because they are used as a way for the host and others to communicate messages to one another. The sound effects of the helicopter, for example, communicate the air traffic controller is about to come on to deliver news when really, he is not in a helicopter at all. As we mentioned in class, this actually brings in the idea of the “media manifold” which is the way that media are enfolded in everyday life to constitute an environment for social actions. This is exactly what is happening in Pontypool. Technologies are being used to create different forms of oral communication and mediatize them for audiences. To go even further we must distinguish the mediated vs. the mediatized. Now that I have defined mediated, the mediatized is how the media is intertwined and spread through other discourses. The language virus, for example, is mediatized for its intersections and travelling through different media forms as well as the ability of the media to spread and influence sectors of society through the virus. 

References: 

Couldry, N. & Hepp, A. (2015). The Social World as Communicative Construction. The Mediated Construction of Reality. 

Harold, I. (1951). The Oral Tradition & Minerva's Owl. Empire and Communication, & The Bias of Communication. 

Mullen, M. (2009). Space Bias/Time Bias: Harold Innis, “Empire and Communications” [Review of Empire and Communications, by H. Innins]. Technology and Culture, 50(1), 175–186. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40061573