The articles, “When Old Technologies Were New”, “Technology and Ideology” and “America Calling: Social History of Telephone to 1940” offers the discussions about the evolution and the development of early forms of communication. These forms include but not limited to Telegraph, the electric communication, and other older communication forms. According to Carey (204), a debate to discuss whether or not communication was a deterrent to character and health development of the common men was held by in 1926 by the Knights of Columbus Adult Education Committee. In this way, the church itself also supported this train of thought, since by itself it was not against progress as a whole, but it believed that morals would be unable to keep up with modern technology. This sentiment was shared by other smaller parties such as journalists, newspaper firms, urban planners and women, who were all in agreement that technology as a whole brought people who were in isolation before, together and was for the best. As a result, the articles note that modern forms of communication emerged.
In her article, Carolyn Marvin argues that modernity highlights the development that occurs industrially, commercially and socially. According to Marvin (67), the contemporary writers follow the path set out by social science founders, at first focusing on economic organisations more, although they started turning slowly and gradually to social life. Like all other developments before it, modernization did not come without its set of criticisms, leading the charge being that it was impossible that social, economic and psychological changes occurred together. The results of the inquiry into modernity were that as much as technology affected the day to modern day life of man, the man himself continuously changed to align himself with the ever increasing use of technology.
As Fischer contends, the technology’s effect on social life can be viewed in several ways by economists and culture critics, and also according to the various uses in day to day life through gadgets such as the vacuum custodian, telephone and the automobile (5). Intellectual approaches to technology can be viewed in two ways, externally and internally. Both problems come with their set of challenges. The ‘billiard-ball model’ states that technology affects elements in the society which then go on to affect each other. The ‘impact-imprint’ theory states that technology alters history through the transfer of cultural and psychological qualities onto the user. Both these forms of determinism differ in the fact that the first one is hard while the newer one is soft. Symptomatic approaches look at technology as expressions of culture. However, it usually raises its problems, such as the casual logic being opaque.
The Fischer in his article provides the analysis of the key concepts such as the social constructivism concept, which stresses the indeterminacy of technological change. The authors note that social constructivism concentrates on the producers, marketers or experts of a technical system. The telephone was chosen because it captures most clearly the magnification of social contact, and it had been studied least among space-transcending technologies of the current era. The first telephone was made in March 1876. Serious marketing began in 1877. Technical problems arose in the 1880s, and temporary solutions only began working in the late 1890s.The first telephone subscribers were physicians, but businessmen formed the primary market. There was a drastic increase in the number of communications within the USA between 1880 and 1893, from 60000 to 260000. It slowed down after 1883.In 1902, roughly 3000 independent telephone companies existed in the U.S.A.
Fischer notes that the public phones also spurred telephone use (5). Canadian competition was faced earlier than in the States for the development of the telephone. In Europe, telephone services began as scattered private enterprises. The introduction of electricity in means of communication at first was received in a strange manner due to its effect on all forms of social interactions. Particular nervousness was attached to areas of family privacy that would be exposed via the adoption of electricity in communication. This was apparent in the increased use of the telephone (Fischer 5). New forms of communication brought with them new forms of romantic interactions in the form of courting and infidelity. Electricity was also domesticated, for example in the use of the electric bulb. It was used to facilitate better communication between masters and servants. There were considerable fears that exclusive communities would be overwhelmed by outsiders. New forms of presence muddled social distance. An increase in the use of electronic media came with it an increase in the level of crime. New technology served as targets onto which we could mirror all forms of hopes and fears. In 1876, electricity was introduced as a means of enacting the capital punishment.
According to Marvin, the Western Union first dominated the telegraph. It provided modern techniques for which complex management was worked out. It was the first product of the electrical goods industry. The Telegraph reworked the nature of the written language and the nature of awareness itself. It enabled the expansion in the colonial empire theoretically tenable. It also led to the selective control and transmission of knowledge. The article by Marvin, Fischer and Carey offers the discussions of the evolution of communication forms and their development to modernity. In this case, the telegraph marked the decisive separation of ‘transport’ and ‘communication. It also puts everyone in the same place for trade, thereby making geographical differences irrelevant. Today, each’s sense of time and actions is affected globally by the presence of time zones, which are affixed to our consciousness. The pressure to establish time zones was felt more strongly in North America, which averaged of eight hours to the newly established land, West Alaska. The system was proposed in 1870 by a New Yorker named Charles Dowd. Standard time zones were established because of the technological power of the telegraph.
Work Cited
Fischer, S. Claude. America Calling: Social History of Telephone to 1940. University of California Press. 1994 Print
Marvin, Carolyn. When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication during the nineteenth century. Oxford University Press. 1988. Print
Carey, James. Technology and Ideology: The Case of Telegraph
