“Our Language Is Its Host!”: Time Bias vs. Space Bias in Pontypool - Ella Nickerson Blog Post #2
In Pontypool, many of Pontypool’s residents become infected with a virus that seemingly affects their ability to produce language, and it causes them to repeat words nonsensically and eventually become aggressive toward others. As explained in the film, the virus doesn’t spread through the air or through physical contact. Rather, it is in words, and the English language is its host. Dr. Mendez explains to Grant and Sydney that certain words become “infected,” and that the virus spreads when a person hears an infected word and understands its meaning. Therefore, the virus spreads through a combination of understanding language and speaking it aloud, as people become infected by understanding certain words and can then spread the virus through their own speech.
According to Innis's analysis of ancient empires and media forms, every medium for communication has a bias toward either time or space. Time-biased media are heavy and durable, making them useful for preserving knowledge over time, while space-biased media are lighter and less durable, making them better suited to communicating across wide areas. As we discussed in class, despite speech not being a durable medium in a physical sense, Innis understands speech and oral tradition as a time-biased medium because they allow knowledge, stories, and cultural traditions to be passed down through generations. However, media like radio, telephone, and electronic amplification are key to the virus’s spread, as they allow infected words to be transmitted across large distances. Thus, by applying Innis’s theory to the virus in Pontypool, I would argue that its vector of infection is primarily space-biased because infected words are transmitted through speech, and technologies like radio and telephone allow them to reach people across large distances. This spread is made possible by contemporary forms of orality. Radio, telephone, and electronic amplification are contemporary forms of orality because they allow people to communicate through speech using modern technology over long distances.
Sources
Class of October 7th: Sound, Noise, and Power (Lecture)
Introduction, Empire and Communications
Pontypool
Hi Ella! You have done a great job explaining the film itself and connecting it back to our larger course themes. As someone who also chose this question, I agree that this film falls more into the category of space-biased. I also agree with how you have laid out how this film demonstrates orality, even if it is done through technology. Now Pontypool came out in 2008. What piece of technology do you believe would be the biggest threat when it comes to the spread of the virus in 2026?
ReplyDeleteHey Ella! I totally agree that the virus is space-biased. At first, when I was trying to answer the question in my blog post, I was kind of thinking about whether it could also be considered time-biased because the virus is spread through the English language. Since English is something that gets taught and passed down through generations, similar to what you mentioned about oral traditions. However, I realized that the main focus in the movie is how infected words spread to different people through technologies like radio and telephone, which allows the virus to reach people regardless of how close or far away they are. So even though language itself can be passed down over time, the way the virus spreads in the movie definitely makes it more space-biased!
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