伊尼斯和麦克卢汉媒介历史分期观比较研究

A Comparative Study of Innis and McLuhan’s Views on the Media History Stages

伊尼斯和麦克卢汉都将媒介历史分为口语、文字印刷和电力三个时期。伊尼斯认为,媒介从中完成时间到空间的偏向,帝国由稳定到扩张动荡而面临文明危机。麦克卢汉强调,人的感官系统由此从完整联觉走向延伸割裂,在"地球村"中重回声觉空间。二人的媒介历史分期观都秉持技术决定论,叛离经验学派和批判学派的研究传统,具有结构主义、动态发展和人文色彩,对媒介发展设定模型使其相对忽视媒介和社会的互动关系。二人的理论相异点及原因表现在研究内容、考察视角、学术方法、理论风格、思想倾向五个方面。在学术影响上,共同唤醒对媒介本身的关注,为全球化进程输出早期理论,伊尼斯奠定媒介帝国主义研究基石,麦克卢汉开启后现代分析思潮大幕。

Innis and McLuhan both divide the media history into three periods: oral, text printing and electricity. Innis believes that in these three phases the medium has completed the transition from time bias to spatial bias. The empire has completed the transition from stability to turbulence and expansion, and eventually faced a crisis of civilization. McLuhan stresses that after the three stages,the human sensory system gradually moves from completeness to separation and returns to the acoustic space in the global village. Innis and McLuhan have a technical deterministic attitude, and they all renege on the research traditions of the empirical school and the critical school, and both have structuralism, dynamic development and humanistic care. But their modeling of media development makes them relatively neglect the interaction between media and society. The theoretical differences and reasons of the two are manifested in five aspects: research content, perspective, method, style, and bias. The media history of the two has a high degree of global history, which is structural, dynamic and full of humanistic care. In terms of academic influence, Innis and McLuhan have awakened the attention to the media itself and exported early theories for the globalization process. Innis laid the foundation stone of media imperialism research, and McLuhan opened the curtain of post-modern thought analysis.