[Air-l] hmm, last mile, imaginations, and historical projections

Frank Thomas frank.thomasftr at free.fr
Fri Aug 2 01:08:21 PDT 2002


Jeremy,

I did my Ph.D. about the the German's telephone developent. And I was 
always surprised how especially American authors overestimate the 
"impact" of a communications technology. Technologies such as the 
telephone are socially constructed so there is no single way of 
"impact". Ithiel de Sola Poll in his retroactive technology assessment 
of the telephone listed all those assumptions about the effects of the 
introduction of the telephone. If I remember well there also is a 
 paragraph on what contemporaries thought the telephone would do to 
rural communities. When you read Claude Fischer about the introduction 
of rural telephony when it really happened, Bell did not introduce it in 
 rural areas as they deemed it too expensive. And rural telephone 
coperatives used it not only for demanding grain prices but for - 
chatting, singing together, a sort of self-produced wire radio. That is, 
the telephone through its strengthening of urban-rural hinterland 
exchanges better linked the farm areas to their market centers. And it 
INCREASED community life. It FACILITATED social contacts.
But, you always have to set the introduction of a communications 
technology into its historical, geographical, political, economic, 
cultural context. That is, the real changes in rural America came 
before: with the arrival of the telegraph which linked the grain and 
cattle producing areas to the world market and made farmers feel the 
price changes of Russian wheat or Argentinian beef. (So far for 
globalisation as a product of the late 20th century, Internet etc. , 
greetings to Castell).

So, my answer to your question is: broadband might change some aspects 
of farm life. However, if you see the time budgets of farmers I dont 
know where they can squeeze the time for sitting in front of the screen 
for hours. But most people living in rural areas are not farmers.

And so we come to the different social and economic functions of the 
Internet.  The possible effects of broadband should be differentiated 
along the Internet's functions.

Communications: there is no strong difference between dial-up email and 
broadband email -> probably no broadband effect.

Information retrieval: I guess the most important intervening variable 
is what sort of content is offered. Is there content locally produced so 
that you know better what happens around you? I so, this will reinforce 
local life, no matter if this on bradband or not.

transactions: broadband makes quite a difference so this will make a 
region more attactive either to go to or not to leave - the main reason 
for inter-urban change of residence remaining, of course, a change of 
your workplace, not the quality of the Internet connection.

entertainment: a strong difference. Maybe it's here that cultural 
changes will be the strongest. But for this to happen people must 
already be predisposed having changed their values so that a new 
technology can make a difference. It's not the technology that changes 
life it's us who use technology. We already have a specific mind set 
before its arrival and when the technology arrives, you realise that you 
can now do something that you already found attractive before its arrival.

Social functions of a technology are not technically determined. Thus, a 
social scientist might look at the actors that create their strategies 
(if they have one) and see that in any given context it's the set of 
actors, their coalitions, the resulting strategies, that probably are 
the most important in determining the outcome of the introduction of 
broadband Internet in rural America. 


Sorry about the historical digression.


Frank


jeremy hunsinger a écrit:

> yes, definitely have to be careful with certain assumptions.  
> detraditionalization, traditionalization, and retraditionalization are 
> sociological terms which do have certain things to do with tradition, 
> but have alot more to do with the changing of practices that embody 
> those traditions.  so my comment on detraditionalization was not to 
> assume that rural was more traditional, but to assume there was a 
> process of detraditionalization and it would probably be quickened by 
> broadband access.   the processes operate across all late modern/late 
> capitalism societies, i think.
>
>
>
>>
>> 2.  The major problem facing rural communities is trying to get their 
>> young
>> people to stay--or to come back home after college.   The permanent
>> emigration of young people from rural communities is due almost 
>> entirely to
>> economic pressure.  As agriculture has gotten bigger, jobs have 
>> gotten fewer
>> and most family farms have folded.  The potential economic effects on 
>> rural
>> communities of new information technologies--particularly any jobs 
>> they may
>> create--are likely to outweigh anything else.  (It's notable that in the
>> 1990 census, for the first time *ever*, more people were living in rural
>> areas than they were 10 years earlier.  The 2000 census shows the
>> rural/suburban ratio essentially holding steady.)
>
>
> yes this is part of the process i noted above.
>
>>
>> 3.  Again, agricultural has become a high-tech, technology-driven
>> enterprise.  All of the farmers I know have wireless internet.  These 
>> people
>> *need* the web to manage the logistics of a modern ag 
>> operation--detailed
>> weather reports; ordering and inventorying supplies, parts, 
>> seed/feed, etc.;
>> arranging transportation and storage with distributors,  local 
>> granaries,
>> the railroad; tracking commodities futures; specialized subscription
>> services which advise optimal times to plant and harvest--the list 
>> goes on
>> and on.
>
>
> well they need something in the way of information technology it may 
> not be the web, but yes i agree.
>
>>
>> 4.  I think that the spectacle of people moving to rural communities 
>> to live
>> "off the broadband" is pretty darn unlikely.
>
>
> but that is a selling point in some areas, especially those areas that 
> do have regular logistical access to a population center where they 
> could possibly telecommute most times, and travel in as necessary, 
> sort of a 200 -300 mile circle, a broadening of the megalopolis perhaps.
>
>>   First of all, if I can get
>> broadband all across Garfield County, WA, (pop. 2,300) I can get it 
>> pretty
>> much anywhere. ( http://www.firststepwireless.net/overview/ ) And 
>> second,
>> though upper-class suburbanites may desire to escape from congestion,
>> stress, and sprawl, they LOVE the web. Just ask them.
>
>
> i was unclear i thought they would still have good access to the web 
> due to their access to the broadband.
>
>>
>> my $.02,
>>
>> Matt
>>
>> ********************************************
>> Matt Hindman, Ph.D Candidate
>> Politics Department, Princeton University
>> mhindman at princeton.edu
>> http://www.princeton.edu/~mhindman/
>> ********************************************
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "jeremy hunsinger" <jhuns at vt.edu>
>> To: <air-l at aoir.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2002 7:10 PM
>> Subject: [Air-l] hmm, last mile, imaginations, and historical 
>> projections
>>
>>
>> I'm sitting here looking at several fairly substantial proposals for
>> programs taking rural last mile broadband into account and was thinking
>> that taking the lastmile to the house in rural america may not have the
>> effects that are projected.  any opinions, theories, thoughts?
>>
>>
>>   I'm thinking that there is corresponding detraditionalizations that 
>> may
>> not have lasting positive effects on these communities, though immediate
>> economic effects may occur.  I'm thinking this will promote an overall
>> migration and population transition toward more urbanization, etc. which
>> of course is not supportive to small rural communities, which may in the
>> end result in a new gentrification of those communities by displaces
>> upper class urbanites looking to operate off of the broadband, thus
>> possibly creating the same situation as occured with industrialization
>> with the automobile in the south.  again, thoughts, theories, opinions?
>>
>> I mean what we have is a certain number of imaginations of the future,
>> sometimes even supported by research and i could really use some more
>> citations on this, that seem to assume a certain set of goods in
>> development and goods in the expansion of technologies for the
>> populace...
>>
>> so in short, let me know.
>>
>>
>> jeremy hunsinger
>> jhuns at vt.edu
>> on the ibook
>> www.cddc.vt.edu
>> www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy
>> www.dromocracy.com
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> jeremy hunsinger
> jhuns at vt.edu
> on the ibook
> www.cddc.vt.edu
> www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy
> www.dromocracy.com
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Frank Thomas
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