Metropolis and the Hinterland

Abstract

Cultural studies scholar James Carey is known for an approach to communication that drew on Harold Innis for understanding relations between the metropolis and the hinterland and John Dewey for understanding community and culture. Despite the value of his approach, Carey’s theory has a blind spot at the intersection of community and politics. He collapsed notions of community and the public and bracketed the politics of meaning-making at the local level. Consequently, his theory takes the politics out of local community, where identities are formed and political issues identified. Dewey’s explanation of democracy as both associated life in the local community and a form of government that grows from it offers a better political vision for a theory of communication.