Blog Post 3 Alyssa Buck

 

Blog Post 3: Vimy Ridge as Canadian Communication

Alyssa A. Buck

Wilfrid Laurier University

CS304 Canadian Communication Thought

Professor Andrew Herman

March 16, 2026

The Battle at Vimy Ridge is known as a major "watershed" moment in the building of the Canadian national identity. This represents the critical transition Canada underwent from a colonial dominion to a sovereign nation during and after World War I. As narrated by Peter Mansbridge in the CBC documentary, “Vimy Ridge is a site where memory and meaning have shifted throughout time," forcing all the generations of Canadians to remember and choose what exactly the event means for the country's current identity. Harold Innis was an artillery signaller in the Canadian Field Artillery who saw front-line duty and was wounded at Vimy Ridge on July 7, 1917. This experience transformed him into the scholar he is known for being today. Which will be spoken about with the Bias of Communication.

This blog post will apply Innis's concepts of the bias of communication practices and media forms to two separate media artifacts that help us to “remember.” Vimy Ridge. The blog post will answer multiple questions on time and space bias. It will also discuss whether I think these artifacts help us, as Canadians, to paraphrase Innis, to know the past in a way that helps us shape Canada as a nation in the present and the future. However, while both digital artifacts are inherently space-biased in form, they attempt to perform a time-binding ritual by preserving national memory and countering the present-mindedness of modern mechanized culture.

According to Innis, the physical properties of a medium predispose a society to frame its knowledge across two dimensions: time and space. This paragraph will discuss time bias and space bias, as well as the problem of the imbalance between space and time. Time bias is described as the embodiment of media being heavy and durable to last a long time. Time-bias media pieces are difficult to transport; they can be made of materials such as stone tablets, clay or wood. These media favour tradition and the sacred, such as seeking to bind a society together over a long period of time rather than across vast distances. Time-binding media biases often support hierarchical, tradition-oriented groups, such as religious organizations.

Space bias is the embodiment of media that is supposed to be light and easily transportable. Some examples of popular space-bias media are papyrus, electronic media, and paper. These media types favour the “dissemination of knowledge over great distances, facing territorial expansion, trade, and administration. However, there is a downside to this medium, as with all media. They lead to a lack of permanence and to a condition Innis termed “present-mindedness,” an obsession with the immediate moment that ignores the past and future.

Innis argues throughout his work that there is an issue when space and time biases are imbalanced in a culture and society. Civilizations flourish when they achieve an equilibrium where the biases of different media offset one another. Without that balance, he warns that “social collapse is inevitable” when one bias is more prominent than the other. An example Innis gave is within Western society. This will be especially true in Western society because of the focus on space-biased media, such as mass-circulation radio and newspapers. 

This paragraph will discuss the tension between the technological form of the CBC video and its ritualistic function, examining how it attempts to bridge Innis's concepts of space and time. As the Vimy Ridge video is a digital broadcast posted on YouTube, “Why the Battle of Vimy Ridge Matters” is a prominent example of space-biased media forms. The video acts as an “extension of messages across space and time for the purpose of control.” Thus, reaching a vast Canadian audience to simultaneously coordinate a singular national identity. In reflection on what Innis calls “mechanization of knowledge,” information is moved quickly but often lacks the permanence found in durable media.

While the video is space-biased, the media's content still acts as a time-binding ritual function. Thus, following James Carey's “Ritual of Communication”. The video not only provides information but also represents a Canadian belief shared across generations. The battle, being a creation story and “The Birth of a Nation,” helps the CBC create a socius of communicative meaning, a shared symbolic world of intersubjectivity that binds current Canadians to our ancestors. This digital artifact uses space-binding electronic signals to create a time-binder hinterland. The video helps Canadians know the past not just as a set of facts but as a “drama” force that continues to shape the nation's future.

The Vimy Monument website from the Canadian Government is a good example of a hybrid medium that bridges the gap between administrative space bias and representational time bias. In its basic form, the website is a technological format that serves as an archetypal space-biased medium. Harold Innis defined these types of media as "light and easily transported". The website is delivered via electronic signals, favouring easily accessible information over methods for storing it to preserve it over time. The site is a tool used by the Government to provide facts and figures, such as media kits and educational resources, that support decentralization and government systems. Innis is associated with modern empires in which information is rapidly disseminated to maintain administrative control, as with websites such as the Vimy Ridge site. While the medium is space-biased, its content is dedicated to preserving a time-biased monument. Innis identified stone and architecture as the ultimate time-binding media because of their durability, to favour the maintenance of society over long durations. The website acts as a digital archive for the physical stone memorial in France. Through these documents, such as photos, records, and transcripts, on the website, to show how the stone monument gives out meaning to present the information to people who cannot visit the physical site.

By providing the virtual field trips on the site with the narratives of service, the website attempts to conjure a socius of communication. This is shared in a symbolic world of intersubjectivity, where Canadians can inhabit a collective infinity that extends far beyond physical locations. Following Carey’s ritual view, the website's purpose is not merely the transmission of data but the maintenance of society through time through the representation of shared beliefs, binding citizens to the creation story of our nation.

The digital tool serves a critical function in the relationship between the center and the margin. It uses space-binding technology to reintroduce time-binding traditions into the national consciousness. This helps to restore the Innisian equilibrium between power and knowledge necessary for cultural survival.

In conclusion, the exploration of Vimy Ridge through various media artifacts reveals the enduring significance of this event in shaping Canada's national identity. By applying Harold Innis's concepts of the bias of communication, we can see how these artifacts not only highlight the spatial aspects of memory but also engage in a critical process of time-binding. They remind us of our shared history and its implications for our collective future. Ultimately, these narratives challenge the present-mindedness of contemporary society and encourage Canadians to reflect on their past, fostering a deeper connection to our nation’s identity and guiding us in our ongoing journey.

Citations

CBC News: The National. (2017, April 7). Why the Battle of Vimy Ridge matters [Video]. YouTube.

Gould, G. (Producer). (1967). The Idea of North [Radio documentary]. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Veterans Affairs Canada. (n.d.). Canadian National Vimy Memorial. Government of Canada.

Herman, A. (2026). CS 304 - Canadian communication thought: Unit I Innis, media materialism, and the configuration of power in time and space [Lecture notes]. Wilfrid Laurier University, MyLearningSpace.

Innis, H. A. (1951). The problem of space. In The bias of communication (pp. 92–131). University of Toronto Press.