Det netværkende menneske - Knowledge Lab

facilitated the movement of individuals and goods (Rose,
1976). These often started out in competition with canal
systems, but they soon out competed the canals since they
were able to operate throughout the year, and the
development of the rail systems was easier than that of
canals with their attendant locks, etc. (Sawhney, 2005). The
system of railroads grew from something like 40 miles in the
US in 1830 to more than 163 000 miles in 1890 (United States
Census Bureau, 1890). This increased capacity for
transportation changed the structure of commerce,
settlement patterns and the nature of everyday life. It was,
however, a collective solution. Individuals wishing to go from
London to Birmingham, from Paris to Lille or from Pittsburg
to Philadelphia needed to assemble themselves at the train
station at a particular time, buy tickets and perhaps deal with
various transfers as they moved toward their destination.
There were set departure times and while there may have
been different classes of wagons, the range of choices was
limited. Starting in the 1850’s rail technology was applied to
the problem of urban transport (see for example Ebner,
1988).
Communication developed somewhat along the same lines
and indeed the development of the telegraph is intertwined
with that of the rail system (Beniger, 1986; Standage, 1998).
While there were early optical communication systems
(Dilhac, n.d.) the electrical telegraph did not arrive on the
scene until the 1830’s. Indeed the first commercial uses for
the telegraph were often associated with signaling for the
railroad system. In addition to the telegraph’s role as a
communication medium for commerce and social interaction,
its role in coordinating the rail system was a key function
(Beniger, 1986). Following from the discussion of the
collective nature of the railway system, the telegraph is a
collective approach to communication. In order to send a
message, the individual needed to go to the local office, write
out their message and give it to the telegraph operator. The
message would be sent to the appropriate location and from
there it was delivered by hand to the intended recipient.
At the beginning of the 20th century, transportation and
mediated communication were largely collective. In order to
travel long distances or in order to quickly communicate
across those distances, the individual needed to engage one
of the collective technological systems of the day.
Early in that century, however, the situation started to
change and it was transportation that was first to move away
from a more collective approach, at least in terms of the
direct device used in transportation. The late 1800’s had seen
the development of more and more reliable devices that
would come to be called automobiles 1 . From the 1880’s until
1908, the automobile was largely a plaything of the rich or of
the technically determined. Starting in the fall of 1908,
however, Henry Ford started to produce the Model T. The
price 2 , the production methods and the ruggedness of the
car meant that at one point, 40% of all cars sold in the US
were Model T’s. Obviously others followed suit and the
automobile was popularized. Indeed as time went on, the
automobile out competed many of the collective
transportation solutions. The automobile afforded flexibility
where the train system was rigid. The automobile gave
privacy where passengers were exposed to the habits of the
public in the collective systems. As production costs declined
in some countries, the automobile has moved from being a
common artifact of the home to being an individual
technology (National Statistics UK, 2008) This is not to say
that the automobile it without its faults. Urban sprawl,
pollution, the need for repairs and periodical renewal, lethal
accidents and a whole range of other ills are also a part of the
automobile’s story.
The individualization of communication has taken a slightly
different path. In the 1870’s the telephone was developed. Its
great contribution to communication was that it eliminated
the need for a trained person to encode/decode the
message. Thus, the need for a Morse operator was eliminated
and anyone who could speak and listen was able to use the
1 Bryson notes that alternative names included self-motor, locomotive
car, autobat, autopher, diamote, autovic, self-propelled carriage and
several others. It was not until about 1899 that automobile became a
common name and car was common by about 1910 (Bryson, 1994,
194)
2 It eventually costed approximately $900 in today’s currency, when the
efficiencies of production were realized.
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