Ithiel de Sola Pool (szerk.), The Social Impact of the Telephone

Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1977.

BACKGROUND

In retrospect, the telephone may have been more crucial to social and economic development during the past 100 years than many had observed and expected. There now seems to be a growing consensus that telephony has had long-run consequences too important to be overlooked.

The mechanisms linking telecommunications to social and economic development, however, are still not clear. Because of the matter's complexity, there are different lines of reasoning regarding the impact of telecommunications on development with regard to both the past and future. Two main lines can be identified:

1. Some see a new communications technology as almost automatically bound to produce new communication linkages between previously unconnected places and individuals. According to this view, the existence of new linkages promotes social and economic development, irrespective of other measures taken.¹

2. Others point out that without close "fitness" to already existing structures, a new communication network will not long survive, and its development effects will be poor. In short, and according to the view of most telecommunication administrations, the telephone of the 1880s (as well as the new media of the 1980s) is supposed to have no independent, active role in the development processes; other factors are the leading ones.
 

THE SCOPE OF THE DISCUSSION

We shall focus here on feasibility problems and the mechanisms linking telecommunications to social and economic development.² This includes questions such as:

1. Under what circumstances can new communication networks, linking previously disconnected groups, work and survive long enough to have a lasting impact on social and economic development?

2. Are there unfulfilled needs for communication to which telecommunications can make unique contributions, or can they bridge critical gaps in existing networks?

3. If the answers to the first two questions are positive, what are the consequences for further research, including field trials of new technology?
 

A FRAMEWORK FOR DISCUSSION

I begin with a point made by Professor Pool in a recent book. He notes that a few critical linkages might connect groups much larger than the actual communicators; thereby, the potential network available to an individual or an organization is enlarged.³ My question is: what happens if the crucial link is disconnected due to some outside circumstance? To use the title concept of this paper, will "silent actors" inherent in the network be activated to keep the original network alive, or are the two subsets of communicators to become disconnected forever? Is planned action needed to restore the original network, or do communication networks have the capacity for "self-repairing" so that the original, or even more viable, combinations are created?

Such questions are not impossible to answer, as long as the discussion is confined to small group behavior studied under controllable conditions. These have been fairly well studied, and similarly, in the case of mass communication, statistical distributions can be observed.

When it comes to intermediate cases, however (such as government or business organizations that contain thousands of employees in different locations), the dynamics of the linkage pattern are still mostly unknown. Further analysis of interorgan-izational networks is an important task in itself, and alsobecause the elucidation ot organizational networks might help us to understand communications at large. Public and private organizations also have a heavy impact on information flows that connect individuals outside the organizations themselves.
 

EMPIRICAL STUDIES

In his contribution, "Comparing the Telephone with Face-to-Face Contact", Alex Reid reviews the substantive British research comparing different media in the laboratory. He points out that telephone contact differs from traditional face-to-face contact in two ways. First, it transcends distance; second, it transmits only audio information. Laboratory experiments permit singling out these factors, or testing them in different combinations.

By contrast, the field studies discussed here depict large-scale networks, where the telephone and face-to-face communication are used side by side, or sequentially. A communication process between two organizations (or regions) may begin in any medium. During the process, however, a switch may take place between media. Often this happens in combination with a switch of the actual communicators as the message is passed upwards, downwards, or sideways in the organizations (or regions) involved. Thus, a communication process normally has a history in which persons not presently participating may still have had a heavy influence on the design of the networks at large, as well as on the choice of media at a specific point in time. Once one has passed the background information, additional narrow media may be more profitably used for a while.

To observe the "silent actors" which affect the viability of the networks, large-scale and repeated field studies are needed. A first attempt was made in Sweden in 1965. A pilot study covering all headquarters employees of a relocating Stockholm company was launched on a before and after basis. Data was collected four months before and eight months after the actual relocation from Stockholm to Eskilstuna, a small city 120 kilometers away. Follow-up studies were done in 1969 and 1974 to observe long-run adaption to the new location. Self-completed diaries were used to cover all communication with outside sources (oral, telephone, and written) during two six-day stretches in each of the observation periods. Also included was the communication between headquarters and fourteen plants in different locations in Sweden. The results indicated a substantial reshuffling of contact from higher to lower echelons but a surprisingly low degree of substitution of face-to-face by telephone contacts despite a travel time to Stockholm of more than two hours in each direction. Thus, the ratio of face-to-face to telephone contacts has been quite stable, both in the short run and in the ten-year period after the relocation.⁴

Some years later, more extensive studies covering hundreds of organizations were launched in Sweden and the United Kingdom. In Sweden, close to a hundred production and service companies of varying scale were covered by another diary study. Data from more than 10,000 telephone calls (longer than two minutes) and 3,000 face-to-face meetings was collected covering about twenty different dimensions for each contact event: e.g., length of meeting, number of participants, degree of advance planning, frequency of earlier contact, scope of information, and degree of feedback. The composition of groups (proportion of new vs. established participants) was of specific interest as were a number of questions on travel.

...
 

SOME EMPIRICAL RESULTS

...

On a general level ... the most striking feature of the comparisons is not the obvious differences between face-to-face and telephone contacts (that coincide with the results from laboratory experiments), but the close relationships between different media that form part of a joint multimedia, multiperson network connecting large segments of society over long periods of time.

For example, even the crude data presented here contradict the notion that telephone contacts have a propensity to create new linkages. The percentage of new relations with someone previously uncontacted is markedly higher for face-to-face contacts, whereas telephones are for more regular contacts (monthly, weekly, daily). The proportion of occasional contacts is similar for the two media.

More interesting than such static descriptions of the communication process is the dynamic by which telephone contacts contribute to the variety and viability of the contact networks. In turn, these are enriched by elements of face-to-face meetings as part of the contact chain over time. Once one has the background information from earlier meetings, narrower channels (such as the telephone) become more powerful than they would be in isolation. Space permits only a few illustrations, highlighting the local nature of communication and the role of third parties as silent actors in the process over time.
 

COMMUNICATION IS LOCAL

Remembering that the data refer to large organizations (such as central government agencies and companies operating nationally and internationally), perhaps it is surprising to find that they are so heavily dependent on local communication networks. As much as one-third of the travels are less than ten minutes away, and two-thirds are within a thirty-minute radius. Because telephone contacts are basically with the same set of sources, they do not extend as far over space as might be expected. A more detailed analysis of production patterns has demonstrated that the local networks are not explainable by reference to routine contacts alone, but rather to complex, continuously renewed interactions with new sources in the near environment. Personal meetings and telephone contacts are of a mutually reinforcing variety; viability of contact with a self-repairing capacity is difficult to achieve over long distances, at least with present telecommunications.
 

COMMUNICATION IS EXTENDED BY THIRD PARTIES OVER TIME

Quite often, the links between two organizations are not the obvious direct ones. Rather, a third (or fourth) party may act as the common denominator carrying the potential for occasional direct contacts. Most of the contacts that occur, as indicated by our data, are local. However, the existence of occasional long-distance communications among the few individuals who link the local subsets may be essential for the viability of the organization. The different bodies might not be aware of each other's existence but could still benefit from the existence of intermittent and normally silent actors. This is a process over time, where switching between different media and groups goes on in a Markov-type chain in which averaging smooths the inherent dynamics. However, the dependence over time might also be seen as the key to the obvious spatial dependence.
 

CONCLUSIONS FOR FUTURE FIELD TRIALS

Retrospectively, the data presented here might both delimit and extend our conclusions about the role of telecommunication. The capacity of telephony to transcend distance, create new linkages, and replace face-to-face meetings might have narrower margins than expected from laboratory experiments. On the other hand, the importance of telephony as part of a multimedia flow might be even more critical than expected, keeping other networks such as personal contact viable and extended over time and space. Telephony might even be crucial for the existence of other networks that have a more direct relation to development. Without repeated brief telephone contacts, the personal relationship that is exercised only occasionally might atrophy with time. At the same time, without personal contact as background, telephone networks do not develop.

Looking into future field trials, we need to find a working compromise between two opposing dangers in testing new systems:

1. One danger is defining the relevant network participants too narrowly, thereby excluding not only important user groups but also normally silent actors with whom potential contact is necessary for the long-run survival of the relationship.⁵

2. The opposite danger is beginning with a new communication system that is so weakly connected to the mainstream that the network meets premature death. As already mentioned, empirical field data might be needed to strike a correct balance; research in that direction is going on at an increasing scale at many European universities.

In the meantime, awaiting full elucidation of the complexities of contact networks, alternative delimitations and sensitivity analysis of the effect of different network borderlines might be a necessary precaution lest the silent actors remain silent forever.

1. See, for example, Suzanne Keller's paper in this volume.

2. The concept of development is used here in a wide sense to include not only potential effects on income levels, employment, etc., but also potential effects on participation in decision processes, etc.

3. Figure source: Ithiel de Sola Pool and Wilbur Schramm, eds., Handbook of Communication (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1974).

4. See Thorngren (1976).

5. The introduction of loud speaking telephones (as well as the picturephone) are well-known examples of the danger of too narrowly conceived user groups. Use of the new equipment was expected to percolate from the top levels of the organization to the bottom, even though the lower echelons might have more need for free hands to find the papers the boss is requesting. Similarly, picturephones might be more useful in production and R&D than in top management. Processes started at the wrong end will not diffuse.
 

REFERENCES
 

Collins, H."Organizational Communications." Communications Studies Group. London, 1972. Mimeo.

Goddard, J.B. "Communications and Office Location: A Review of Current Research." Regional Studies 5 (1971).

______. "Office Linkages and Location." Progress in Planning, Vol. 1, Part 2 (1973).

Pool, I., and Schramm, W. Handbook of Communications. Chicago: Rand McNaIIy, 1974.

Reid, A. A. L. "Face to Face Contacts in Government Departments. First Report of the Contact Sheet Survey." Communications Studies Group. London, 1971. Mimeo.

Thorngren, B. "Regional External Economies." EFI. Stockholm, 1976.

______."How Do Contact Systems Affect Regional Development?" Environment 6- Planning 2 (1970).
 

______. "Communication Studies for Government Office Dispersal in Sweden." Office Location and Regional Development, An Foras Forbartha. Dublin, 1973.