Blog Post #2 - Victoria Gonyea

The virus in Pontypool is transmitted in unique way as opposed to other movies about zombie outbreaks. This disease is transmitted through language. In this movie, there are certain words that when said and understood, transmit the disease and ultimately turns the speaker into a type of zombie. 

When comparing this film to Harold Innis’ concept of time and space bias, it is easy to see how this is mainly a space bias medium. Innis explains that time bias forms of communication are steady, and hard to move or break. They are usually immobile, and hard to transport. Therefore it is difficult for time bias forms of communication to be used over large distances. In contrast, space bias media opposes time bias because it is light, easy to move and utilize over distances, and usually not as permanent as time bias is. 

Within the movie Pontypool, almost the entirety of the movie is filmed within a radio station. While the virus is spread using speech (a media that Innis argues is a time bias media) the movie focuses on other media such as cell phones, radio broadcasting and voice recordings which can be considered to be more space bias.

Overall, the film Pontypool displays a unique form of virus transmission that can be analyzed through Harold Innis’ explain action of time and space bias.


Comments

  1. Grace MurakamiFebruary 8, 2023 at 10:45 AM

    Hi Victoria, great post!

    I like how you noted that space bias is not as permanent or long lasting as time bias. When it comes to Pontypool one of the most interesting parts for me was how those infected, could get out of it by forcing the word to lose meaning. In this way the infected word is only 'infected' temporary - which could be another example of space bias!

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  2. Caraline MacDonaldFebruary 8, 2023 at 12:03 PM

    Hey Victoria!

    This was a very well done discussion post that highlights a bunch of great points. Pontypool was defiantly a cool movie to watch during our class time, as it had a lot of deep connections to important course content.

    I really like how you touched on the concept of Harold Innis and the understanding of space-bias media. With the expansion and innovation of digital technologies, we can definitely see a lot of space-bias media representation in our world today. In the film, we can see a strong representation of space-bias media as the language, which is broadcasted all over the country, is easily transportable, light and the sender does not have to be present to send a message.

    Overall, this was a very well done discussion post. I look forward to hearing from you in the coming weeks.

    Caraline.

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