Monopolies of knowledge

The Canadian economic historian Harold Innis developed the concept of monopolies of knowledge in his later writings on communications.

Innis gave no precise definition of the term, but did suggest that he was extending the concept of monopoly in the field of economics to knowledge in general. Monopolies of knowledge arise when ruling classes maintain their political power through their control of key communications technologies. An example of this occurs in ancient Egypt where a complex writing system conferred a monopoly of knowledge on literate priests and scribes. Mastering the art of writing and reading required long periods of apprenticeship and instruction, confining knowledge to this powerful class.

This theory suggests that monopolies of knowledge gradually suppress new ways of thinking. Entrenched hierarchies become increasingly rigid and out of touch with social realities. Challenges to elite power are often likely to arise on the margins of society. The arts, for example, are often seen as a means of escape from the sterility of conformist thought.

Innis's warnings about monopolies of knowledge take on particular urgency in the years immediately preceding his death in 1952. In his later writings, he argued that industrialization and mass media had led to the mechanization of a culture in which more personal forms of oral communication were radically devalued. "Reading is quicker than listening," Innis wrote in 1948. "The printing press and the radio address the world instead of the individual."

When discussing the monopolies of knowledge, Innis focuses much of his concern on the United States, where he feared that mass-circulation newspapers and magazines along with privately owned broadcasting networks had undermined independent thought and local cultures and rendered audiences passive in the face of what he calls the "vast monopolies of communication".James W. Carey notes that Innis worried about the centralized control of information and entertainment by advertising-driven media. "The very existence of a commodity such as 'information' and an institution called 'media' make each other necessary," Carey writes. "More people spend more time dependent on the journalist, the publisher, and the program director. Every week they wait for Time [magazine]."

In order to fashion his concept of monopolies of knowledge, Innis drew on several fields of study, including economics, history, communications and technology.

...
Wikipedia