Assignment 6: due Monday,
March 9, 2009 at 5pm via bSpace:
Friedlander and Fischer tell the histories of new information
technologies primarily in terms of business strategy. What
advantages are to this approach in trying to understand the history of
information? What disadvantages? Give examples from one or
both of the readings.
Some exemplary responses:
I think that the main advantage of using the business strategy
viewpoint is that we can easily see the oft-overlooked factors which
hindered or abetted the spread of a technology. Such factors are, even
today, routinely ignored or misunderstood by the average
consumer. What we often fail to realize is that there is always a
reason (good or bad) for the way technology, or any product, is
marketed. This is especially true for the adoption of the
telephone, which, for 15 years was tied solely to a single company (and
even long after Bell's patents expired, the greater portion of the
budding industry was still controlled by that company). Therefore
it is impossible to understand the adoption of such technologies
without looking closely at its parent corporation, and, by extension,
its business practices. On the other hand, such a style of
historical analysis ignores some of the more mundane problems of
technological adoption. In a world of email and Facebook, it is
difficult to imagine the dramatic changes the telegraph and telephone
wrought on a society with no prior means of (more or less) instant
long-distance communications. Indeed, Friedlander even comments
that the political, military, and economic value of the telegraph was
not truly appreciated for nearly a decade after its invention.
Fischer likewise glosses over the effect the telephone had on the lives
of many: doctors, businessmen, and politicians able to communicate for
the first time over distance without the need for clumsy Morse
code. The commercial approach these authors use fails to account
for these social aspects of development. - Steven Liu
The success of describing the history of information technologies
through analyzing business strategy depends on how influential the
business was in shaping the use of the technology. The spread and
adoption of telephone technology was greatly influenced by pricing,
which was in turn influenced by the extent of competition between
telephone companies. Until 1893, when Alexander Graham Bell’s patent on
the telephone expired, telephone service and use of equipment were
monopolized by the Bell company. The expiration created a new
competitive environment where Bell's old approach, in which “the public
interest received scant attention”, needed to change to compete with
smaller independents, who expanded the technology into new markets by
using cheaper rates and shared lines. Fischer sees this era of
competition as transforming telephone service from “a business tool and
a luxury good to a common utility”. His account of the technology from
a business perspective is beneficial because its use was originally
tightly controlled by the business organized around its invention. For
other types of technology, where adoption is more accessible to
individuals, or the federal government takes a stronger stance in
shaping the spread and use of the technology, an account from the
business perspective would be less successful. A focus on business also
cannot fully illustrate how the adoption of technology changed the
lives of users. -Jessica
It's true that Friedlander and Fischer tend to focus on business
decisions in their accounts of telephony and telegraphy. At the same
time, they don't ignore social or political history, and do a decent
job of explaining the economic consequences of each technology for
normal people. My tendency as a history student is to abhor
bureaucratic minutiae (this is one reason I don't love presidential
biographies) but it seems apt in these two readings. In each case,
focusing at first on businessmen is a sensible approach because, as
Fischer notes, "It was not at all obvious whom the telephone would
serve and how." (40) Similarly, potential users of the telegraph "may
not have believed that they wanted or needed virtually instantaneous
communication... the postal service was sufficient for most of their
needs." (Fischer 17) In this historical context, where the stories of
early adopters are much less important than those of the corporate
decision-makers, I can't fault the authors for focusing on business.
Moreover, to their credit, each author at least pays lip service to
other areas of history. Friedlander tracks the telegraph industry's
dealings with government and other institutions like the Associated
Press, and Fischer provides a periodic look at the cost of telephone
service from its inception to the breakup of Bell's monopoly. -Samuel
Ryan
Friedlander explains the development of the telegraph system in terms
of how it shaped, and was shaped by, business needs. This perspective
makes sense for a number of reasons, one of which both Friedlander and
Fischer point out: the telegraph was "dominated by business interests"
and was "rarely used for non-business purposes." One disadvantage,
alluded to by Friedlander is that one could carry the argument further
and examine how this technology in turn influenced culture.
Specifically, the fact that prices for the same goods started to level
out with the appearance of the telegraph most likely brought about
increased homogeneity in 'taste,' given that the same products were
becoming increasingly available to very specific income brackets. This
is a cultural/social change and is worth examining. Fischer examines
the development of the telephone industry in the USA from the
perspective of its role as a consumer product. While this, too, is a
valuable perspective, the telephone's use value as an interpersonal and
public service facilitator far exceeds that of the telegraph. As such
the perspective of business strategy is more limited when telling the
story of the telephone than when doing so with the telegraph. -Josh
Looking at the history of technologies through terms of business
strategies offers logical explanations, in the form of patent/business
owners' motives, for why that technology developed the way it did. Both
Friedlander and Fischer offer accounts of the telegraph and the
telephone as privately owned monopolies. As privately owned monopolies,
these companies, such as Bell’s AT&T, got rid of all other
companies to secure their own rights to determine costs. As such,
prices remained high and a luxury item of businessmen, merchants and
not part of the private citizen’s daily life. It also explains the
government’s role in these developments. For example, The New Deal
changed the regulatory atmosphere in the United States, and the
government somewhat encouraged telephone diffusion by holding rates
down, pressuring companies to serve outlying areas, and requiring
interconnection. However what this kind of approach fails to touch on
is the culture of the telegraph or telephone. Looking back to David
Henkin’s approach on the emergence of the postal system, he offers mail
technology in place with mass literacy, mobility, and people’s desire
to communicate. -Andrea
During the late 19th centiry, capitalism was at arguably its most
unrestrained. So, when discussing technologies and forms of
information access that emerged during this era, it is important to
note their connection to the business context.
Friedlander’s article places serious significance on the issue of
investment. The telegraph had difficulty getting off the ground
because it at first could not summon enough. Investment reflects
belief that the product will be viable – in other words, how much
demand it will generate. This says a great deal about the role of
the technology in relation to social context. In this sense, the
business perspective is revealing.
However, looking toward the business end alone does not provide much
meaningful insight into how people’s lives were qualitatively affected
by the given technology. Fischer explores the rise of telephone
companies in terms of prevalence rates and cost. He makes claims
like telephones were still too expensive for middle class Americans
before World War II, backing this up with figures like cost in terms of
percent of income and cost relative to common goods like milk and
bacon. This does not tell us about the middle class American’s
perception of the telephone or information access in terms of social
significance. That would require a consumer-centric look at the
telephone, not a business-centric one. -Alex Bigman
Analyzing the evolution of business models surrounding a new technology
provides insight into consumer attitudes toward and demand for the
technology. For example, Friedlander points out that private
citizens still found the postal service to be adequate for their
communication needs, leading Western Union to target businesses as the
primary market for the telegraph. Such observations can provide
evidence to understand how social phenomena such as westward migration
and war relate to how access to information is perceived. Setting
aside financial and technological limitations, a settler may have
preferred a letter to a telegram from distant relations due to the
relative lack of restriction on length and content. Consequently,
the time delay of mail was not a significant drawback. On the
other hand, the outcomes of particular battles or casualty lists are
information that people would want rapid access to, so news agencies
would obviously prefer the telegraph to the mail.
Of course, analyzing business models only provides a partial account of
the impact that a technology such as the telegraph had. For
example, how did the truncated language used in telegrams influence
personal discourse, literature, or education? Looking exclusively
at business models fails to shed light on such questions. -Ned
The advantage in discussing the history of information through business
strategy is that it highlights the competing interests that were
involved in the development of these new technologies. For
example, with both the telegraph and telephone, there was a sole
inventor who developed the technology, but without the right leadership
and business model, the technology would not have been able to
flourish. Incidentally, the same person, Theodore Vail, had the
right mindset to organize the business so that he maximized publicity,
quality and overall business power for both inventions. Also, by
showing how effective these technologies can be for businesses, it
allows dispersion and justification for domestic use. Since the
flourishing of business indirectly corresponds to better quality of
life for society, business use began to tempt residents to start
communicating through long-distance and how relationships among people
began to change. The disadvantages to understanding history of
information through business strategy is that it seems to concentrate
only on profit-making as opposed to how it can benefit society.
Especially with the telephone, top executives were not in favor of
making this service affordable, which shows communication for the
masses is initially low priority for businesses. Also, in-depth
history focuses on minute business details that may be irrelevant in
understanding how society is affected. -
May
By describing the history of the telegraph and telephone through the
scope of buisness strategy, Friendlander and Fishcer both demonstrate
the exteme importance of competition and societal demand plays in the
evolution or demise of such technologies. Amy Friedlander points out
the role that six party competition had on the telegraph in terms of
developing buisness strategy. With such competition, it was not enough
for buisnesses to create the most efficient technologies, but had to
appeal to specific demographics and other major companies ot be
successful. The converse relationship that developed between the
telegraph and the railroad signifies this relationship; those companies
that did not align themselves with the railroad companies fell apart.
Since many buisnessmen used the telegraph over the telegram, Fischer
demonstrates how telephone companies had to appeal to a wider base of
consumers to be successful. Though telephone use was primarily by
doctors and parmacies at first, competitive low prices and the ability
to call from coast to coast affordably were driving factors towards the
telephone appealing to a greater proportion of Americans. Though
looking at the telegraph and telephone through a buisness perspective
sheds light on the difficulties companies like AT&T faced to stay
successful, the accounts do not take into consideration other
information and communication outlets, such as the postal service. With
the surge in telegraph and telephone use, did less people begin sending
letters? If so, what reparcussions did this have on the postal service?
These wholistic ideas are not covered in both these specific narrative
accounts. - Steven White
Since the focus is primarily based on business strategies, the
explanations of the history of new information technologies by
Friedlander and Fischer inevitably both have advantages and
disadvantages. One advantage to this approach is that it is easier to
pinpoint what drove new information technologies; by reducing this
evolution to business practices, one could conclude that as businesses
grew and competitors fought for their share of the market, new
technologies were developed that distinguished who gained
control(monopoly). From this conclusion, this is a more systematic way
of studying the history of technology. However, this advantage is also
the disadvantage-- social factors were not of great interest. This is
emphasized in the first chapter of “America Calling”: “Economists tend
to focus on immediate and straightforward applications of technical
advances. Neither group, and few scholars generally, have looked
closely at how the use of major technologies affects personal and
social life”. Both authors geared towards how technology shaped social
factors in a way that suited businesses (telephones) rather than
analyze how social factors shaped technology. Not weighing equal
emphasis on social factors is a disadvantage due to the complexity of
the rise of technology. For example, the automobile started out having
more of an intention to fix the problem of efficient transportation
rather than vie for profit as seen today. - Greg Wilson
Analyzing the history of information from a business-oriented viewpoint
has the advantage of demonstrating how financial restrictions, legal
restrictions, and historical events shape the development of new
information technologies. For example, we see how though the telegraph
was patented in 1837, it is not for another 6 years that it is
implemented in testing. We can also see how the Railroad industry drove
the development of the telegraph, and more generally how business
relations determine particularly which new technologies flourish.
Viewing the history of information from this angle however, obscures
some details about the device's role in culture. For example, when we
read Friedlander's article on the telegraph, we learn about when the
telegraph developed and where, but we learn little about what the
development of the telegraph meant for the common man. We understand
that it improved capital by N% for certain businesses, but there is
little to be learned about the culture of the telegraph. We don't see
what exactly the telegraph did to personal relationships, for example,
and upon reading an article centered on the business of telegraph
companies, we might think that it had nothing to do with the personal
sphere or culture at all. -Christopher W.
Technological and scienfic advances will always be connected to the
policies that affect them. Scientists, now-a-days, grudgling accept
that politics play a very important role in everything from legality of
issues to funding of scientific experiments. People in the research
fields are excited about Obama becoming the president because they
expect him to allocate more money towards research. Similar to the way
Dick Cheney was able to help Halliburton by being the vice president,
Anson Stager was able to help Western Union by being the Union Army's
superindendent of military operations during the civil war. Studying
the strategies used by Field in order to lay a transatlantic cable line
will teach us on how to convince governments and private individuals to
fund a risky investment. Studying history through business strategy
tells us the rise and fall of a particular technology. Studying
histories of information technologies in terms of business strategy
gives us a good idea of how such politics work, how people make deals
with each other and in simple terms, it gives us an understanding of
the business of the technology. However, studying history through
business strategy gives an impersonal view of the people that lived
during the times. Friedlander mentions that between 1845 and 1850,
telegraph revenues were dominated by business. That does not tell us
how the common man's life was impacted by the new invention. It also
does not give enough credit to the inventors. Friedlander mentions
Morse in one paragraph out of ten pages of her chapter. While seeing
history through the eyes of business can give us an understanding of
the financial and the political background of the technology, it leaves
us in the dark about the evolution of technology and its influence on
the life style of the people. -Praneeth
The shift is from technological determinism to social perception and
utility. It is useful because we see how people interpret a technology
and how subsequent shifts in that interpretation allow for different
modes of usage. For example both the telegraph and the telephone were
initially perceived as novelties with little practical use. Says
Fischer, the inventor of the telephone had "the formidable task of
inventing uses for the telephone and impressing them on others."
Similarly it wasn't until the transmission of the democratic nomination
of Polk that the telegraph's relevance to democracy was widely
acknowledged. However, uncritically looking at business strategies as a
gauge of a technologies import, is irrationally assuming that the
business advocates understood the consequences of their product, where
they're relevant market was, how consumers would perceive the
technology, and that they acted rationally in response. During the late
19th Century "the consensus was that any increased business would not
make up for the profits lost by reducing rates." However, we cannot
from this infer that early telephone technology was not desirable
enough to the residential sector to allow Bell to expand service,
though it seems a plausible explanation. Fischer rightly points out
that these groups misunderstood how the technology would be embraced:
"as a network, telephones became more attractive." -Roy