Edward Comor
Biographic Data
| ID | 282866 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Edward Comor |
| GIVEN NAMES | Edward |
| FAMILY NAME | Comor |
| SIGNATURE | COMOR E |
| AFFILIATIONS | American University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 39 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Communication, Bias, and Survival: Harold Innis’ Final Course
Background: Shortly before Harold Innis’ death in November 1952, Tom Easterbrook took over teaching Innis’ signature course on communications at the University of Toronto, making it both Innis’ final course as well as the first course taught on Innis. Analysis: This article discusses lectures prepared by Tom Easterbrook for Harold Innis’ signature course on communications. Conclusions and implications: In his effort to explain Innis’ search for a…
Revisiting Marx's Value Theory: A Critical Response to Analyses of Digital Prosumption
In their assessment of value creation through prosumption and other activities related to the use of digital technologies, despite significant differences, Fuchs (2010) and Arvidsson and Colleoni (2012) misinterpret Marx's value theory. Through their analyses, a totalizing or new form of capitalism is said to have emerged, but these, I argue, entail demonstrably idealist theorizations. The end result is that these authors occlude more than they c…
McLuhan and World Affairs
Digital Engagement: America’s Use (and Misuse) of Marshall McLuhan
In recent years the United States has turned to digital technologies to buoy its response to anti-Americanism in the so-called “Muslim world.” At least three concepts appear to be shaping this effort. The first is a marketing-based strategy called “engagement.” The other two are derivations of Marshall McLuhan’s “global village” and his aphorism that “the medium is the message.” This article focuses on the uses and misuses of McLuhan’s work by fo…
Contextualizing and Critiquing the Fantastic Prosumer: Power, Alienation and Hegemony
The 'prosumer' has emerged to become a central figure in contemporary culture. Through the melding of production with consumption, both mainstream and progressive analysts conceptualize prosumption to be a liberating, empowering and, for some, a prospectively revolutionary institution. In this article, these fantastic associations are critically assessed using an approach that situates prosumption activities, including contemporary online applica…
Harold Innis and 'The Bias of Communication'
Fifty years after his death, Harold Innis remains one of the most widely cited but least understood of communication theorists. This is particularly true in relation to his concept of ‘bias’. This paper reconstructs this concept and places it in the context of Innis’ uniquely non-Marxist dialectical materialist methodology. In so doing, the author emphasizes ongoing debates concerning Innis’ work and demonstrates its utility in relation to contem…
Harold Innis in the New Century, Reflections and Refractions
This is an ambitious collection. Its chapters-initially presented at a conference organized for the 1994 centenary of Innis' birth-assess Harold Innis' work in the context of the contemporary "era of globalization, resurgent nationalism, identity politics, and new technologies of communications" (p. 14)
The Role of Communication in Global Civil Society: Forces, Processes, Prospects
The author examines the concept of global civil society (GCS) through the use of theoretical tools and empirical evidence related to the study of International Communication. He demonstrates that scholarship on GCS tends to simplify the process through which information becomes knowledge and that the state system–GCS relationship often is presented in terms of an ahistorical power dichotomy. In relation to these problems, what the author calls “G…
Politics in Wired Nations: Selected Writings of Ithiel De Sola Pool
The Global Political Economy of Communications
Harold Innis’s Dialectical Triad
Perhaps Harold Innis’s most important yet least understood contribution to social science is the development of a relatively original dialectical materialist methodology. This methodology can be conceptualized in the form of a dialectical triad involving the categories "wealth," "knowledge" and "force." The author argues that a core component of this triad is the much misunderstood concept of "bias." Guided by Innis’s contribution, a modified for…
Contextualizing and Critiquing the Fantastic Prosumer: Power, Alienation and Hegemony
The 'prosumer' has emerged to become a central figure in contemporary culture. Through the melding of production with consumption, both mainstream and progressive analysts conceptualize prosumption to be a liberating, empowering and, for some, a prospectively revolutionary institution. In this article, these fantastic associations are critically assessed using an approach that situates prosumption activities, including contemporary online applica…
The Role of Communication in Global Civil Society: Forces, Processes, Prospects
The author examines the concept of global civil society (GCS) through the use of theoretical tools and empirical evidence related to the study of International Communication. He demonstrates that scholarship on GCS tends to simplify the process through which information becomes knowledge and that the state system–GCS relationship often is presented in terms of an ahistorical power dichotomy. In relation to these problems, what the author calls “G…
Revisiting Marx's Value Theory: A Critical Response to Analyses of Digital Prosumption
In their assessment of value creation through prosumption and other activities related to the use of digital technologies, despite significant differences, Fuchs (2010) and Arvidsson and Colleoni (2012) misinterpret Marx's value theory. Through their analyses, a totalizing or new form of capitalism is said to have emerged, but these, I argue, entail demonstrably idealist theorizations. The end result is that these authors occlude more than they c…
Digital Engagement: America’s Use (and Misuse) of Marshall McLuhan
In recent years the United States has turned to digital technologies to buoy its response to anti-Americanism in the so-called “Muslim world.” At least three concepts appear to be shaping this effort. The first is a marketing-based strategy called “engagement.” The other two are derivations of Marshall McLuhan’s “global village” and his aphorism that “the medium is the message.” This article focuses on the uses and misuses of McLuhan’s work by fo…
Politics in Wired Nations: Selected Writings of Ithiel De Sola Pool
Harold Innis’s Dialectical Triad
Perhaps Harold Innis’s most important yet least understood contribution to social science is the development of a relatively original dialectical materialist methodology. This methodology can be conceptualized in the form of a dialectical triad involving the categories "wealth," "knowledge" and "force." The author argues that a core component of this triad is the much misunderstood concept of "bias." Guided by Innis’s contribution, a modified for…
The Global Political Economy of Communications
Politics in Wired Nations: Selected Writings of Ithiel De Sola Pool
Harold Innis and 'The Bias of Communication'
Fifty years after his death, Harold Innis remains one of the most widely cited but least understood of communication theorists. This is particularly true in relation to his concept of ‘bias’. This paper reconstructs this concept and places it in the context of Innis’ uniquely non-Marxist dialectical materialist methodology. In so doing, the author emphasizes ongoing debates concerning Innis’ work and demonstrates its utility in relation to contem…
Harold Innis in the New Century, Reflections and Refractions
This is an ambitious collection. Its chapters-initially presented at a conference organized for the 1994 centenary of Innis' birth-assess Harold Innis' work in the context of the contemporary "era of globalization, resurgent nationalism, identity politics, and new technologies of communications" (p. 14)
The Role of Communication in Global Civil Society: Forces, Processes, Prospects
The author examines the concept of global civil society (GCS) through the use of theoretical tools and empirical evidence related to the study of International Communication. He demonstrates that scholarship on GCS tends to simplify the process through which information becomes knowledge and that the state system–GCS relationship often is presented in terms of an ahistorical power dichotomy. In relation to these problems, what the author calls “G…
Contextualizing and Critiquing the Fantastic Prosumer: Power, Alienation and Hegemony
The 'prosumer' has emerged to become a central figure in contemporary culture. Through the melding of production with consumption, both mainstream and progressive analysts conceptualize prosumption to be a liberating, empowering and, for some, a prospectively revolutionary institution. In this article, these fantastic associations are critically assessed using an approach that situates prosumption activities, including contemporary online applica…
Digital Engagement: America’s Use (and Misuse) of Marshall McLuhan
In recent years the United States has turned to digital technologies to buoy its response to anti-Americanism in the so-called “Muslim world.” At least three concepts appear to be shaping this effort. The first is a marketing-based strategy called “engagement.” The other two are derivations of Marshall McLuhan’s “global village” and his aphorism that “the medium is the message.” This article focuses on the uses and misuses of McLuhan’s work by fo…
McLuhan and World Affairs
Revisiting Marx's Value Theory: A Critical Response to Analyses of Digital Prosumption
In their assessment of value creation through prosumption and other activities related to the use of digital technologies, despite significant differences, Fuchs (2010) and Arvidsson and Colleoni (2012) misinterpret Marx's value theory. Through their analyses, a totalizing or new form of capitalism is said to have emerged, but these, I argue, entail demonstrably idealist theorizations. The end result is that these authors occlude more than they c…
Communication, Bias, and Survival: Harold Innis’ Final Course
Background: Shortly before Harold Innis’ death in November 1952, Tom Easterbrook took over teaching Innis’ signature course on communications at the University of Toronto, making it both Innis’ final course as well as the first course taught on Innis. Analysis: This article discusses lectures prepared by Tom Easterbrook for Harold Innis’ signature course on communications. Conclusions and implications: In his effort to explain Innis’ search for a…
Sociology (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Economics (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Media, Communication, and Education (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works)