CRD701: History and Theory of Communication Technology

Kellerman (2006) identifies the first of three historical waves of personal mobility as the ability to make a telephone call in relative privacy rather than use the public telegraph machine at the post office (p. 83). While an operator still needed to connect the call, an individual could make or receive a private call without the entire community knowing the details. As telephones made their way into individual homes, they actually restrained mobility, as one did not need to go into town to use the phone. The second wave of personal mobility was the introduction and mass production of the automobile. As Kellerman explains, ?The car permitted the moving of any personal commodities and any people for any purpose, be it for business or pleasure, to every destination connected to a road system? (p. 83). The introduction of the Internet allowed for even greater personal mobility, although of a more virtual nature. Individuals were able instantly send and receive voice, text and images from any computer connected to the system (p. 83). While the automobile still takes days to travel across the country, with the Internet it only takes seconds.

The third wave of personal mobility has extended personal virtual expression to unprecedented levels (p. 98). At a seminar I attended, a student panelist talked about how two of his friends became engaged and, rather than them telling him personally, he found out via Facebook. While the impersonal nature of the disclosure offended him, I feel it is a way for friends no longer as close personally or geographically to let others know their important news. I have learned at least four of my friends were engaged via Facebook and that another was having a baby. With at least one friend, a classmate from undergraduate school with whom I had lost touch, I would not have known otherwise. Social networks sustain and strengthen this ability to share information with colleagues and acquaintances, who Sheller and Urry (2006) call weak ties (p. 216).

According to Sheller and Urry, mobility relies heavily on the consistency of immobility. Indeed, an automobile cannot travel where there is no road or refuel where there is no gas station (pp. 210-211). Likewise, we cannot make cell phone calls or use WiFi Internet where there in no service available. Inconsistent immobility leads to advances to overcome problems with accessing technology, such as the development of cable TV for people who lived in mountainous areas where broadcast signals could not reach.

Jensen (2006) presents a re-reading of texts by Georg Simmel and Erving Goffman. Often misunderstood and dismissed for being too obscure or trivial in their work, Simmel and Goffman offer incredible insights applicable to mobility studies. Simmel dealt with urban mobility, arguing, ?City life is dependent upon punctuality, calculability and exactness? (p. 148). In the most basic sense, this rule is evident in remarks that Fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini may have been a tyrant, but he made the trains run on time. Whether he actually did or not, the notion that Mussolini was able to regulate the country?s transportation system, thus absolving him of his other sins, indicts the importance of maintaining order of city life.

 Goffman?s research dealt with how individuals interact with others in public settings, such as a city street or subway car. ?Accordingly,? writes Jensen, ?what regulates the mobile behaviour in our cities are not merely the regulatory regimes of diverse municipal orders, but also the tacit and informal mobility codes and norms? (p. 152). ?Unlike the fashion model on the catwalk ?the subway rider is giving a nonshow, communicating to others that he does not wish to be communicated with?? (p. 157). This ?civil inattention? of avoiding eye contact, placing a bag in the next seat and portraying unfriendly facial expressions, provides extensive non-verbal cues. Southwest Airlines passengers are allowed to choose their own seats, resulting in early boarders attempting to dissuade others from sitting with them. On a full flight, another passenger and I once strategized on whom we wanted to sit with us, by making friendly eye contact only with little old ladies who would not take up too much room.

Wood and Graham (2005) present a different view of mobility, focusing on the issue of network neutrality. Without using that specific term, Wood and Graham chronicle the use of automated systems to privilege certain communication over others. As they explain, ?Internet routers are now being programmed with software that actually prioritizes packets of information differently, based on real-time, corporate judgments of the real or potential profitability of the person sending the traffic? (p. 183). Since the Internet was created to treat each packet of data equally, they argue such a system ?has profound political and social implications? (p. 185).

It seems necessary to ask the question: how is this any different from other discrimination? Using the film Pretty Woman as just one example, store clerks for high-end retail shops may dismiss someone who looks like she just came in off the street. In answer, the difference and major problem is that users often have no idea they are being privileged or disenfranchised. ?The potential for discrimination, and indeed for transgression, has effectively been given to the designers, builders and programmers of such systems, who are able to embody their prejudices and desires into the very functioning code and architecture of the systems themselves? (p. 186). Conversely, it is obvious when a clerk ignores you because he or she thinks you do not have enough money or status so you can choose to shop elsewhere.