 Innis was appointed president of the Canadian Political Science Association in 1938 . His inaugural address , entitled The <unk> Powers of the Price System , must have <unk> his listeners as he ranged over centuries of economic history jumping abruptly from one topic to the next linking monetary developments to patterns of trade and settlement . The address was an ambitious attempt to show the disruptive effects of new technologies culminating in the modern shift from an industrial system based on coal and iron to the newest sources of industrial power , electricity , oil and steel . Innis also tried to show the commercial effects of mass circulation newspapers , made possible by expanded <unk> production , and of the new medium of radio , which " threatens to <unk> the walls imposed by tariffs and to reach across boundaries frequently denied to other media of communication " . Both media , Innis argued , stimulated the demand for consumer goods and both promoted nationalism . 
