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This article compares why McLuhan's work in communications has been the source of much acclaim whereas that of lnnis has attracted attention only recently. It argues that the disparate responses to the contributions of these two theorists are rooted not only in the extent to which their writings were available, but also in their differing communication practices. The latter account for why Innis' studies of media were initially ignored and why McLuhan was able to develop a considerable following, in part by drawing on Innis as a precursor; this resulted in a distorted view of lnnis' ideas that has persisted to this day. As a corrective, the article challenges McLuhan's claims that Innis viewed media as a form of staple and that he sought to understand how various knowledge specialities could be unified. Finally, it makes the case that the Innis/McLuhan tandem should be decoupled, to make better sense of a "de-McLuhanised" Innis on the one hand, and the McLuhanist-centred Toronto School on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including Canadian thinkers Marshall McLuhan and Harold A. Innis, McLuhanian concept of medium, and the place of poetry in the work of McLuhan.

On May 12, 1943, Harold Innis delivered a speech entitled "The Crisis in Public Opinion" at the annual luncheon of the Canadian National Newspapers and Periodicals Association, held in Toronto. The address has survived in transcript form in the Innis Papers collection at the University of Toronto Archives. Our paper can best be seen as a companion piece to the edited transcription of Innis' original speech, which follows in this issue of the Canadian Journal of Communication. Emphasizing the performative nature of the speech, we contextualize "The Crisis of Public Opinion" by examining the correspondence leading up to and following the speech. We argue that Innis' views on the "crisis of public opinion" in the print media indicate that he understood this particular issue as part of a broader public crisis related to the decline of political and juridical institutions and to shifts in power and influence. His commentary on media in Canada was bound up with his effort to promote collective engagement as a corrective to the biases in power that he had detected. The 1943 speech is thus significant not simply as a "missing link" between Innis' writings on Canada and his later work on communication theory; it is a clear and compelling distillation of the engagement, enactment, and performance that were the abiding features of his work as an intellectual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On June 18, 1948, the trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation approved an appropriation of $25,000 for use by the officers for the Social Sciences in the development of opportunities in the general area of Moral Issues in the Economic Order. This funding was to enable the officers to invite memoranda from thoughtful students and men of affairs who, it is believed, may have significant ideas to contribute to the Foundation as to directions in which work in this area may be most profitably prosecuted. One of the thoughtful students who was evidently invited to submit a memorandum was Harold Adams Innis, professor of political economy at the University of Toronto, he had established himself as the Rockefeller Foundation's most trusted advisor on matters pertaining to the social sciences in Canada. Innis duly submitted a letter to his friend Joseph Willits, in which he requested support for a small discussion group which has been set up in response to a suggestion from Pendleton Herring, president of the American Social Science Research Council of an interest in the problem of value.

While Harold Innis' address at le Collége de France in 1951 has recently begun to draw some attention, the circumstances surrounding Innis' brief appearance in France remain obscure, and the meaning and significance of the address have yet to be explored in any detail. This article seeks to provide context to Innis' talk by examining his long-standing "French inflection." It also examines the address itself, not only in terms of its themes and concerns, but also as a performative bid to find common ground with others (including the Annales School) who were challenging emergent monopolies of knowledge about the history of civilization. The presentation provides a point of entry into a final phase of Innis' intellectual life that has been overlooked, namely, his efforts to generate a community of like-minded interlocutors who were opposed to particular currents of thought that had become ascendant in the post-war period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]