Virtual webs, physical technologies, and hidden workers: The spaces of labor in information internetworks

Technology and Culture

Volumn 42, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 209-234

  Downey, Greg ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0035612301     PISSN: 0040165X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/tech.2001.0058     Document Type: Article

References (147)

1. The first Web server went on-line at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 1990; the first popular web browser, Mosaic, was released by the University of Illinois National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in 1993. (A browser, it may not yet be needless to say, is a software application running on a client computer that allows a user to view - "browse" - documents on a Web server if it is physically accessible - over some sort of network, usually the Internet - to that client.) See George Johnson, "From Two Small Nodes, a Mighty Web Has Grown," New York Times, 12 October 1999; Tim Berners-Lee with Mark Fischetti, Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor (San Francisco, 1999).
2. The first Web server went on-line at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 1990; the first popular web browser, Mosaic, was released by the University of Illinois National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in 1993. (A browser, it may not yet be needless to say, is a software application running on a client computer that allows a user to view - "browse" - documents on a Web server if it is physically accessible - over some sort of network, usually the Internet - to that client.) See George Johnson, "From Two Small Nodes, a Mighty Web Has Grown," New York Times, 12 October 1999; Tim Berners-Lee with Mark Fischetti, Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor (San Francisco, 1999).
3. The term "cyberspace" was coined well before the advent of the Web by William Gibson in Neuromancer (New York, 1984). On the Internet as cyberspace, see Rob Kitchin, Cyberspace: The World in the Wires (New York, 1998), and "Towards Geographies of Cyberspace," Progress in Human Geography 22 (1998): 385-406.
4. The term "cyberspace" was coined well before the advent of the Web by William Gibson in Neuromancer (New York, 1984). On the Internet as cyberspace, see Rob Kitchin, Cyberspace: The World in the Wires (New York, 1998), and "Towards Geographies of Cyberspace," Progress in Human Geography 22 (1998): 385-406.
5. The term "cyberspace" was coined well before the advent of the Web by William Gibson in Neuromancer (New York, 1984). On the Internet as cyberspace, see Rob Kitchin, Cyberspace: The World in the Wires (New York, 1998), and "Towards Geographies of Cyberspace," Progress in Human Geography 22 (1998): 385-406.
6. The Matrix (U.S., 1999), written and directed by Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski.
7. Saul Hansell and Matt Richtel, "PullingThePlug.com," New York Times, 6 November 2000.
8. Steven Greenhouse, "Amazon Fights Union Activity," New York Times, 29 November 2000.
9. Greg Downey, "Uniformed Boys for Every Occasion": Telegraph Messenger Labor in the First Communications Internetwork, 1850-1950 (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2000). The term "internetwork" comes from Paul N. Edwards, "Y2K: Millennial Reflections on Computers as Infrastructure," History and Technology 15 (1998): 7-29.
10. Greg Downey, "Uniformed Boys for Every Occasion": Telegraph Messenger Labor in the First Communications Internetwork, 1850-1950 (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2000). The term "internetwork" comes from Paul N. Edwards, "Y2K: Millennial Reflections on Computers as Infrastructure," History and Technology 15 (1998): 7-29.
11. For general background of the components of the analog internetwork, see the following works. On the telegraph: David Hochfelder, Taming the Lightning: American Telegraphy as a Revolutionary Technology, 1832-1860 (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1998); Robert L. Thompson, Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States 1832-1866 (Princeton, N.J., 1947); and Joel A. Tarr, with Thomas Finholt and David Goodman, "The City and the Telegraph: Urban Telecommunications in the Pre-Telephone Era," Journal of Urban History 14 (November 1987): 38-80. On the telephone: Milton L. Mueller Jr., Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection, and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System (Cambridge, Mass., 1997); and George David Smith, The Anatomy of a Business Strategy: Bell, Western Electric, and the Origins of the American Telephone Industry (Baltimore, 1985). On the Post Office: Gerald Cullinan, The United States Postal Service (New York, 1973); Wayne E. Fuller, The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life (Chicago, 1972).
12. For general background of the components of the analog internetwork, see the following works. On the telegraph: David Hochfelder, Taming the Lightning: American Telegraphy as a Revolutionary Technology, 1832-1860 (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1998); Robert L. Thompson, Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States 1832-1866 (Princeton, N.J., 1947); and Joel A. Tarr, with Thomas Finholt and David Goodman, "The City and the Telegraph: Urban Telecommunications in the Pre-Telephone Era," Journal of Urban History 14 (November 1987): 38-80. On the telephone: Milton L. Mueller Jr., Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection, and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System (Cambridge, Mass., 1997); and George David Smith, The Anatomy of a Business Strategy: Bell, Western Electric, and the Origins of the American Telephone Industry (Baltimore, 1985). On the Post Office: Gerald Cullinan, The United States Postal Service (New York, 1973); Wayne E. Fuller, The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life (Chicago, 1972).
13. For general background of the components of the analog internetwork, see the following works. On the telegraph: David Hochfelder, Taming the Lightning: American Telegraphy as a Revolutionary Technology, 1832-1860 (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1998); Robert L. Thompson, Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States 1832-1866 (Princeton, N.J., 1947); and Joel A. Tarr, with Thomas Finholt and David Goodman, "The City and the Telegraph: Urban Telecommunications in the Pre-Telephone Era," Journal of Urban History 14 (November 1987): 38-80. On the telephone: Milton L. Mueller Jr., Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection, and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System (Cambridge, Mass., 1997); and George David Smith, The Anatomy of a Business Strategy: Bell, Western Electric, and the Origins of the American Telephone Industry (Baltimore, 1985). On the Post Office: Gerald Cullinan, The United States Postal Service (New York, 1973); Wayne E. Fuller, The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life (Chicago, 1972).
14. For general background of the components of the analog internetwork, see the following works. On the telegraph: David Hochfelder, Taming the Lightning: American Telegraphy as a Revolutionary Technology, 1832-1860 (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1998); Robert L. Thompson, Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States 1832-1866 (Princeton, N.J., 1947); and Joel A. Tarr, with Thomas Finholt and David Goodman, "The City and the Telegraph: Urban Telecommunications in the Pre-Telephone Era," Journal of Urban History 14 (November 1987): 38-80. On the telephone: Milton L. Mueller Jr., Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection, and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System (Cambridge, Mass., 1997); and George David Smith, The Anatomy of a Business Strategy: Bell, Western Electric, and the Origins of the American Telephone Industry (Baltimore, 1985). On the Post Office: Gerald Cullinan, The United States Postal Service (New York, 1973); Wayne E. Fuller, The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life (Chicago, 1972).
15. For general background of the components of the analog internetwork, see the following works. On the telegraph: David Hochfelder, Taming the Lightning: American Telegraphy as a Revolutionary Technology, 1832-1860 (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1998); Robert L. Thompson, Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States 1832-1866 (Princeton, N.J., 1947); and Joel A. Tarr, with Thomas Finholt and David Goodman, "The City and the Telegraph: Urban Telecommunications in the Pre-Telephone Era," Journal of Urban History 14 (November 1987): 38-80. On the telephone: Milton L. Mueller Jr., Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection, and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System (Cambridge, Mass., 1997); and George David Smith, The Anatomy of a Business Strategy: Bell, Western Electric, and the Origins of the American Telephone Industry (Baltimore, 1985). On the Post Office: Gerald Cullinan, The United States Postal Service (New York, 1973); Wayne E. Fuller, The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life (Chicago, 1972).
16. For general background of the components of the analog internetwork, see the following works. On the telegraph: David Hochfelder, Taming the Lightning: American Telegraphy as a Revolutionary Technology, 1832-1860 (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1998); Robert L. Thompson, Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States 1832-1866 (Princeton, N.J., 1947); and Joel A. Tarr, with Thomas Finholt and David Goodman, "The City and the Telegraph: Urban Telecommunications in the Pre-Telephone Era," Journal of Urban History 14 (November 1987): 38-80. On the telephone: Milton L. Mueller Jr., Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection, and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System (Cambridge, Mass., 1997); and George David Smith, The Anatomy of a Business Strategy: Bell, Western Electric, and the Origins of the American Telephone Industry (Baltimore, 1985). On the Post Office: Gerald Cullinan, The United States Postal Service (New York, 1973); Wayne E. Fuller, The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life (Chicago, 1972).
17. For general background of the components of the analog internetwork, see the following works. On the telegraph: David Hochfelder, Taming the Lightning: American Telegraphy as a Revolutionary Technology, 1832-1860 (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1998); Robert L. Thompson, Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States 1832-1866 (Princeton, N.J., 1947); and Joel A. Tarr, with Thomas Finholt and David Goodman, "The City and the Telegraph: Urban Telecommunications in the Pre-Telephone Era," Journal of Urban History 14 (November 1987): 38-80. On the telephone: Milton L. Mueller Jr., Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection, and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System (Cambridge, Mass., 1997); and George David Smith, The Anatomy of a Business Strategy: Bell, Western Electric, and the Origins of the American Telephone Industry (Baltimore, 1985). On the Post Office: Gerald Cullinan, The United States Postal Service (New York, 1973); Wayne E. Fuller, The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life (Chicago, 1972).
18. Note that I am not arguing here that an internetwork - or even an information internetwork - is a universal, ahistorical category; I am arguing that it might be more of a modern phenomenon than a postmodern one. As David Nye has observed, "The telephone and telegraph, the early forms of networked communication, provide an essential background for understanding the computer network"; see "Shaping Communication Networks: Telegraph, Telephone, Computer," Social Research 64 (fall 1997): 1067-91. Similarly, Anthony Giddens proposed that new methods of "time-space distanciation," or "the conditions under which time and space are organised so as to connect presence and absence," were fundamental to modernity itself; The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, Calif., 1990), 14.
19. Note that I am not arguing here that an internetwork - or even an information internetwork - is a universal, ahistorical category; I am arguing that it might be more of a modern phenomenon than a postmodern one. As David Nye has observed, "The telephone and telegraph, the early forms of networked communication, provide an essential background for understanding the computer network"; see "Shaping Communication Networks: Telegraph, Telephone, Computer," Social Research 64 (fall 1997): 1067-91. Similarly, Anthony Giddens proposed that new methods of "time-space distanciation," or "the conditions under which time and space are organised so as to connect presence and absence," were fundamental to modernity itself; The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, Calif., 1990), 14.
20. For an excellent history of the ARPANET (which I rely upon extensively in this article), see Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (Cambridge, Mass., 1999). On the geography of the Internet, see Martin Dodge and Narushige Shiode, "Where on Earth is the Internet? An Empirical Investigation of the Geography of Internet Real Estate," in Cities in the Telecommunications Age: The Fracturing of Geographies, ed. James O. Wheeler, Yuko Aoyama, and Barney Warf (New York, 2000), 42-53.
21. For an excellent history of the ARPANET (which I rely upon extensively in this article), see Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (Cambridge, Mass., 1999). On the geography of the Internet, see Martin Dodge and Narushige Shiode, "Where on Earth is the Internet? An Empirical Investigation of the Geography of Internet Real Estate," in Cities in the Telecommunications Age: The Fracturing of Geographies, ed. James O. Wheeler, Yuko Aoyama, and Barney Warf (New York, 2000), 42-53.
22. As Paul Edwards wrote, "This process is not only technical, but also commercial, social, and political. It opens the door to integrated infrastructures of huge scale and scope." Edwards, 16.
23. I call this an "analog" internetwork because, in contrast to the digital internetwork, information could only move over each component network in a single form, requiring repeated physical translations as it moved through the internetwork (handwriting to voice to dot-and-dash and back again). Although the telegraph itself was in some sense "digital" - based as it was on three possible states: no pulse, a short pulse (dot), and a longer pulse (dash) - those states were conveyed at varying cadences through the physical actions of rapidly pressing telegraph keys and attentively listening to telegraph sounders, and so were still analog at the core. Tom Standage, in The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers (New York, 1998), describes a "Victorian Internet" of "A patchwork of telegraph networks, submarine cables, pneumatic tube systems, and messengers combined to deliver messages within hours over a vast area of the globe(101). And Edward Rothstein has called the transcontinental railroad "the Internet of 1869" ("The Transcontinental Railroad as the Internet of 1869," New York Times, 11 December 1999). But no one has defined a turn-of-the-century internetwork using multiple communications networks as I am doing.
24. I call this an "analog" internetwork because, in contrast to the digital internetwork, information could only move over each component network in a single form, requiring repeated physical translations as it moved through the internetwork (handwriting to voice to dot-and-dash and back again). Although the telegraph itself was in some sense "digital" - based as it was on three possible states: no pulse, a short pulse (dot), and a longer pulse (dash) - those states were conveyed at varying cadences through the physical actions of rapidly pressing telegraph keys and attentively listening to telegraph sounders, and so were still analog at the core. Tom Standage, in The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers (New York, 1998), describes a "Victorian Internet" of "A patchwork of telegraph networks, submarine cables, pneumatic tube systems, and messengers combined to deliver messages within hours over a vast area of the globe(101). And Edward Rothstein has called the transcontinental railroad "the Internet of 1869" ("The Transcontinental Railroad as the Internet of 1869," New York Times, 11 December 1999). But no one has defined a turn-of-the-century internetwork using multiple communications networks as I am doing.
25. Note also that historical actors who used and studied the telegraph, telephone, and Post Office saw the three as an internetwork. Business texts from the 1910s through the 1930s instructed students that proper business practice when sending telegrams involved all three media: even when paying for the "report delivery" and "repeat back" options to make sure telegrams were accurately transmitted and received (with those reports coming by telephone), important telegrams were to be "confirmed immediately by a properly dated and signed letter." See Frank C. McClelland, Office Training and Standards (New York, 1919); Lloyd L. Jones and Lloyd Bertschi, General Business Science (New York, 1930), 336; Clinton A. Reed and V. James Morgan, Introduction to Business (Boston, 1932), 72. Social scientists exploring communications practices in the 1930s also agreed that consumers used all three networks together: "[The patron] may choose freely among the various point-to-point communication agencies available, according to his needs, with the assurance that his requirements will be met no matter what patented mechanical devices are involved, or what corporate interests provide the facilities employed under any given set of circumstances." See Malcolm Willey and Stuart Rice, Communication Agencies and Social Life (New York, 1933), 151.
26. Note also that historical actors who used and studied the telegraph, telephone, and Post Office saw the three as an internetwork. Business texts from the 1910s through the 1930s instructed students that proper business practice when sending telegrams involved all three media: even when paying for the "report delivery" and "repeat back" options to make sure telegrams were accurately transmitted and received (with those reports coming by telephone), important telegrams were to be "confirmed immediately by a properly dated and signed letter." See Frank C. McClelland, Office Training and Standards (New York, 1919); Lloyd L. Jones and Lloyd Bertschi, General Business Science (New York, 1930), 336; Clinton A. Reed and V. James Morgan, Introduction to Business (Boston, 1932), 72. Social scientists exploring communications practices in the 1930s also agreed that consumers used all three networks together: "[The patron] may choose freely among the various point-to-point communication agencies available, according to his needs, with the assurance that his requirements will be met no matter what patented mechanical devices are involved, or what corporate interests provide the facilities employed under any given set of circumstances." See Malcolm Willey and Stuart Rice, Communication Agencies and Social Life (New York, 1933), 151.
27. Note also that historical actors who used and studied the telegraph, telephone, and Post Office saw the three as an internetwork. Business texts from the 1910s through the 1930s instructed students that proper business practice when sending telegrams involved all three media: even when paying for the "report delivery" and "repeat back" options to make sure telegrams were accurately transmitted and received (with those reports coming by telephone), important telegrams were to be "confirmed immediately by a properly dated and signed letter." See Frank C. McClelland, Office Training and Standards (New York, 1919); Lloyd L. Jones and Lloyd Bertschi, General Business Science (New York, 1930), 336; Clinton A. Reed and V. James Morgan, Introduction to Business (Boston, 1932), 72. Social scientists exploring communications practices in the 1930s also agreed that consumers used all three networks together: "[The patron] may choose freely among the various point-to-point communication agencies available, according to his needs, with the assurance that his requirements will be met no matter what patented mechanical devices are involved, or what corporate interests provide the facilities employed under any given set of circumstances." See Malcolm Willey and Stuart Rice, Communication Agencies and Social Life (New York, 1933), 151.
28. Note also that historical actors who used and studied the telegraph, telephone, and Post Office saw the three as an internetwork. Business texts from the 1910s through the 1930s instructed students that proper business practice when sending telegrams involved all three media: even when paying for the "report delivery" and "repeat back" options to make sure telegrams were accurately transmitted and received (with those reports coming by telephone), important telegrams were to be "confirmed immediately by a properly dated and signed letter." See Frank C. McClelland, Office Training and Standards (New York, 1919); Lloyd L. Jones and Lloyd Bertschi, General Business Science (New York, 1930), 336; Clinton A. Reed and V. James Morgan, Introduction to Business (Boston, 1932), 72. Social scientists exploring communications practices in the 1930s also agreed that consumers used all three networks together: "[The patron] may choose freely among the various point-to-point communication agencies available, according to his needs, with the assurance that his requirements will be met no matter what patented mechanical devices are involved, or what corporate interests provide the facilities employed under any given set of circumstances." See Malcolm Willey and Stuart Rice, Communication Agencies and Social Life (New York, 1933), 151.
29. Thomas Hughes illustrated how the various technologies that make up the electrical power system in the United States - generators, dynamos, transformers, end-user appliances, and the like - coevolved under the conscious control of electrical power companies and appliance manufacturers. See Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Baltimore, 1983); "The Evolution of Large Technological Systems," in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, ed. Wiebe Bijker, Thomas Hughes, and Trevor Pinch (Cambridge, Mass., 1987); and "Technological Momentum," in Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism, ed. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (Cambridge, Mass., 1994): 101-14. Hughes considered the ARPANET in particular in his Rescuing Prometheus (New York, 1998). In this article I refer specifically to information internetworks, although it would be useful to consider whether the internetwork model applies to other technological arrangements - even Hughes's original example of the electrical power industry might be considered an internetwork now that global utility deregulation and new technologies such as fuel cells have complicated the picture.
30. Thomas Hughes illustrated how the various technologies that make up the electrical power system in the United States - generators, dynamos, transformers, end-user appliances, and the like - coevolved under the conscious control of electrical power companies and appliance manufacturers. See Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Baltimore, 1983); "The Evolution of Large Technological Systems," in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, ed. Wiebe Bijker, Thomas Hughes, and Trevor Pinch (Cambridge, Mass., 1987); and "Technological Momentum," in Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism, ed. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (Cambridge, Mass., 1994): 101-14. Hughes considered the ARPANET in particular in his Rescuing Prometheus (New York, 1998). In this article I refer specifically to information internetworks, although it would be useful to consider whether the internetwork model applies to other technological arrangements - even Hughes's original example of the electrical power industry might be considered an internetwork now that global utility deregulation and new technologies such as fuel cells have complicated the picture.
31. Thomas Hughes illustrated how the various technologies that make up the electrical power system in the United States - generators, dynamos, transformers, end-user appliances, and the like - coevolved under the conscious control of electrical power companies and appliance manufacturers. See Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Baltimore, 1983); "The Evolution of Large Technological Systems," in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, ed. Wiebe Bijker, Thomas Hughes, and Trevor Pinch (Cambridge, Mass., 1987); and "Technological Momentum," in Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism, ed. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (Cambridge, Mass., 1994): 101-14. Hughes considered the ARPANET in particular in his Rescuing Prometheus (New York, 1998). In this article I refer specifically to information internetworks, although it would be useful to consider whether the internetwork model applies to other technological arrangements - even Hughes's original example of the electrical power industry might be considered an internetwork now that global utility deregulation and new technologies such as fuel cells have complicated the picture.
32. Thomas Hughes illustrated how the various technologies that make up the electrical power system in the United States - generators, dynamos, transformers, end-user appliances, and the like - coevolved under the conscious control of electrical power companies and appliance manufacturers. See Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Baltimore, 1983); "The Evolution of Large Technological Systems," in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, ed. Wiebe Bijker, Thomas Hughes, and Trevor Pinch (Cambridge, Mass., 1987); and "Technological Momentum," in Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism, ed. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (Cambridge, Mass., 1994): 101-14. Hughes considered the ARPANET in particular in his Rescuing Prometheus (New York, 1998). In this article I refer specifically to information internetworks, although it would be useful to consider whether the internetwork model applies to other technological arrangements - even Hughes's original example of the electrical power industry might be considered an internetwork now that global utility deregulation and new technologies such as fuel cells have complicated the picture.
33. In terms of the digital internetwork, Janet Abbate has shown that the shape of the ARPANET was determined largely by its enthusiastic (and technically savvy) user base. As for the analog internetwork, studies by Paul Israel, Claude Fischer, and Richard John have shown how operators, consumers, and legislators helped to shape the telegraph, telephone, and Post Office networks: see Paul Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory: Telegraphy and the Changing Context of American Invention, 1830-1920 (Baltimore, 1992); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, Calif., 1992); and Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge, Mass., 1995).
34. In terms of the digital internetwork, Janet Abbate has shown that the shape of the ARPANET was determined largely by its enthusiastic (and technically savvy) user base. As for the analog internetwork, studies by Paul Israel, Claude Fischer, and Richard John have shown how operators, consumers, and legislators helped to shape the telegraph, telephone, and Post Office networks: see Paul Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory: Telegraphy and the Changing Context of American Invention, 1830-1920 (Baltimore, 1992); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, Calif., 1992); and Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge, Mass., 1995).
35. In terms of the digital internetwork, Janet Abbate has shown that the shape of the ARPANET was determined largely by its enthusiastic (and technically savvy) user base. As for the analog internetwork, studies by Paul Israel, Claude Fischer, and Richard John have shown how operators, consumers, and legislators helped to shape the telegraph, telephone, and Post Office networks: see Paul Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory: Telegraphy and the Changing Context of American Invention, 1830-1920 (Baltimore, 1992); Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, Calif., 1992); and Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge, Mass., 1995).
36. For other views on more specific meanings of social shaping and social construction, see Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker, "The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts," in Bijker, Hughes and Pinch; Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman, eds., The Social Shaping of Technology (Philadelphia, 1999).
37. Manuel Castells, The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process (New York, 1989); The Rise of the Network Society, vol. 1 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (New York, 1996); and "Grassrooting the Space of Flows," in Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above), 18-30. For a critique of the Castells thesis, see Neil Smith, "Spaces of Vulnerability: The Space of Flows and the Politics of Scale," Critique of Anthropology 16 (1996): 63-77. On autonomous technology, see Smith and Marx; see also Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).
38. Manuel Castells, The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process (New York, 1989); The Rise of the Network Society, vol. 1 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (New York, 1996); and "Grassrooting the Space of Flows," in Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above), 18-30. For a critique of the Castells thesis, see Neil Smith, "Spaces of Vulnerability: The Space of Flows and the Politics of Scale," Critique of Anthropology 16 (1996): 63-77. On autonomous technology, see Smith and Marx; see also Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).
39. Manuel Castells, The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process (New York, 1989); The Rise of the Network Society, vol. 1 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (New York, 1996); and "Grassrooting the Space of Flows," in Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above), 18-30. For a critique of the Castells thesis, see Neil Smith, "Spaces of Vulnerability: The Space of Flows and the Politics of Scale," Critique of Anthropology 16 (1996): 63-77. On autonomous technology, see Smith and Marx; see also Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).
40. Manuel Castells, The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process (New York, 1989); The Rise of the Network Society, vol. 1 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (New York, 1996); and "Grassrooting the Space of Flows," in Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above), 18-30. For a critique of the Castells thesis, see Neil Smith, "Spaces of Vulnerability: The Space of Flows and the Politics of Scale," Critique of Anthropology 16 (1996): 63-77. On autonomous technology, see Smith and Marx; see also Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).
41. Manuel Castells, The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process (New York, 1989); The Rise of the Network Society, vol. 1 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (New York, 1996); and "Grassrooting the Space of Flows," in Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above), 18-30. For a critique of the Castells thesis, see Neil Smith, "Spaces of Vulnerability: The Space of Flows and the Politics of Scale," Critique of Anthropology 16 (1996): 63-77. On autonomous technology, see Smith and Marx; see also Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).
42. This phenomenon is sometimes described as "Metcalfe's Law," after a statement made by John Metcalfe, codesigner of the Ethernet protocol: "the usefulness, or utility, of a network equals the square of the number of users." John Markoff, "New Economy: Airborne and Grass Roots," New York Times, 30 October 2000.
43. Note that this description differs from Edwards's conceptualization (n. 6 above) of networks as arrangements linking heterogeneous technological systems.
44. Abbate (n. 9 above), ch. 2. Furthermore, the network links were made not only through the design of a shared protocol to be used by the heterogeneous hosts - the "Network Control Program" (NCP) - but also through the construction of a homogeneous set of hardware additions - an "Interface Message Processor(IMP) for each heterogeneous host.
45. Here I am challenging the model of technological succession that is so often repeated in the history of communications. That model argues that the method, speed, and form of message delivery all gradually advanced starting from the early 1800s. First came the Post Office, sending print messages at railroad speeds; then came the telegraph, sending text messages at electric speeds; finally came the telephone, sending voice messages at electric speeds. But the technological succession argument is nothing more than a technological determinism argument in disguise. Rather than a story of succession, mine is a story of blurring, in which disparate networks coexist uneasily for extended periods of time.
46. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Cambridge, Mass., 1991).
47. David Harvey, The Limits to Capital (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), and "Between Space and Time: Reflections on the Geographical Imagination," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 80 (1990): 418-34.
48. David Harvey, The Limits to Capital (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), and "Between Space and Time: Reflections on the Geographical Imagination," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 80 (1990): 418-34.
49. On social and cultural theories of space and time, see Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension (Garden City, N.Y., 1966) and The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time (Garden City, N.Y., 1983); Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space: 1880-1918 (Cambridge, Mass., 1983).
50. On social and cultural theories of space and time, see Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension (Garden City, N.Y., 1966) and The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time (Garden City, N.Y., 1983); Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space: 1880-1918 (Cambridge, Mass., 1983).
51. On social and cultural theories of space and time, see Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension (Garden City, N.Y., 1966) and The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time (Garden City, N.Y., 1983); Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space: 1880-1918 (Cambridge, Mass., 1983).
52. As David Harvey noted, "Social constructions of space and time operate with the full force of objective facts to which all individuals and institutions necessarily respond"; Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), 211.
53. Although Karl Marx used the phrase "annihilation of space by time" in the Grundrisse during the 1850s, the first example of this in reference to communications technology may have been in Western Union's annual report of 1869: "The value of the telegraph does not consist in the amount of time which can be saved by it over the mail or other means of communication, but in its practical annihilation of time"; Western Union Telegraph Company, Annual Report of the President of the Western Union Telegraph Company to the Stockholders (New York, 1869), 39.
54. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 240. See also Scott Kirsch, "The Incredible Shrinking World? Technology and the Production of Space," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 13 (1995): 529-55.
55. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 240. See also Scott Kirsch, "The Incredible Shrinking World? Technology and the Production of Space," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 13 (1995): 529-55.
56. Neil Smith, Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space (New York, 1984). The discipline of geography has been contested terrain for much of this century, and my interpretation of the field is only one view among many. See Derek Gregory, Geographical Imaginations (Oxford, 1994); John Agnew, David N. Livingstone, and Alisdair Rogers, eds., Human Geography: An Essential Anthology (Cambridge, Mass., 1996); Richard Peet, Modern Geographic Thought (Malden, Mass., 1998); and Tim Unwin, The Place of Geography (New York, 1992). Interestingly, geographers have historically paid less attention to communications than to transportation and location theory. For a discussion of this bias, see Ronald F. Abler, The Geography of Intercommunications Systems: The Postal and Telephone Systems in the United States (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1968); Aharon Kellerman, Telecommunications and Geography (London, 1993).
57. Neil Smith, Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space (New York, 1984). The discipline of geography has been contested terrain for much of this century, and my interpretation of the field is only one view among many. See Derek Gregory, Geographical Imaginations (Oxford, 1994); John Agnew, David N. Livingstone, and Alisdair Rogers, eds., Human Geography: An Essential Anthology (Cambridge, Mass., 1996); Richard Peet, Modern Geographic Thought (Malden, Mass., 1998); and Tim Unwin, The Place of Geography (New York, 1992). Interestingly, geographers have historically paid less attention to communications than to transportation and location theory. For a discussion of this bias, see Ronald F. Abler, The Geography of Intercommunications Systems: The Postal and Telephone Systems in the United States (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1968); Aharon Kellerman, Telecommunications and Geography (London, 1993).
58. Neil Smith, Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space (New York, 1984). The discipline of geography has been contested terrain for much of this century, and my interpretation of the field is only one view among many. See Derek Gregory, Geographical Imaginations (Oxford, 1994); John Agnew, David N. Livingstone, and Alisdair Rogers, eds., Human Geography: An Essential Anthology (Cambridge, Mass., 1996); Richard Peet, Modern Geographic Thought (Malden, Mass., 1998); and Tim Unwin, The Place of Geography (New York, 1992). Interestingly, geographers have historically paid less attention to communications than to transportation and location theory. For a discussion of this bias, see Ronald F. Abler, The Geography of Intercommunications Systems: The Postal and Telephone Systems in the United States (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1968); Aharon Kellerman, Telecommunications and Geography (London, 1993).
59. Neil Smith, Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space (New York, 1984). The discipline of geography has been contested terrain for much of this century, and my interpretation of the field is only one view among many. See Derek Gregory, Geographical Imaginations (Oxford, 1994); John Agnew, David N. Livingstone, and Alisdair Rogers, eds., Human Geography: An Essential Anthology (Cambridge, Mass., 1996); Richard Peet, Modern Geographic Thought (Malden, Mass., 1998); and Tim Unwin, The Place of Geography (New York, 1992). Interestingly, geographers have historically paid less attention to communications than to transportation and location theory. For a discussion of this bias, see Ronald F. Abler, The Geography of Intercommunications Systems: The Postal and Telephone Systems in the United States (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1968); Aharon Kellerman, Telecommunications and Geography (London, 1993).
60. Neil Smith, Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space (New York, 1984). The discipline of geography has been contested terrain for much of this century, and my interpretation of the field is only one view among many. See Derek Gregory, Geographical Imaginations (Oxford, 1994); John Agnew, David N. Livingstone, and Alisdair Rogers, eds., Human Geography: An Essential Anthology (Cambridge, Mass., 1996); Richard Peet, Modern Geographic Thought (Malden, Mass., 1998); and Tim Unwin, The Place of Geography (New York, 1992). Interestingly, geographers have historically paid less attention to communications than to transportation and location theory. For a discussion of this bias, see Ronald F. Abler, The Geography of Intercommunications Systems: The Postal and Telephone Systems in the United States (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1968); Aharon Kellerman, Telecommunications and Geography (London, 1993).
61. Neil Smith, Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space (New York, 1984). The discipline of geography has been contested terrain for much of this century, and my interpretation of the field is only one view among many. See Derek Gregory, Geographical Imaginations (Oxford, 1994); John Agnew, David N. Livingstone, and Alisdair Rogers, eds., Human Geography: An Essential Anthology (Cambridge, Mass., 1996); Richard Peet, Modern Geographic Thought (Malden, Mass., 1998); and Tim Unwin, The Place of Geography (New York, 1992). Interestingly, geographers have historically paid less attention to communications than to transportation and location theory. For a discussion of this bias, see Ronald F. Abler, The Geography of Intercommunications Systems: The Postal and Telephone Systems in the United States (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1968); Aharon Kellerman, Telecommunications and Geography (London, 1993).
62. Neil Smith, Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space (New York, 1984). The discipline of geography has been contested terrain for much of this century, and my interpretation of the field is only one view among many. See Derek Gregory, Geographical Imaginations (Oxford, 1994); John Agnew, David N. Livingstone, and Alisdair Rogers, eds., Human Geography: An Essential Anthology (Cambridge, Mass., 1996); Richard Peet, Modern Geographic Thought (Malden, Mass., 1998); and Tim Unwin, The Place of Geography (New York, 1992). Interestingly, geographers have historically paid less attention to communications than to transportation and location theory. For a discussion of this bias, see Ronald F. Abler, The Geography of Intercommunications Systems: The Postal and Telephone Systems in the United States (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1968); Aharon Kellerman, Telecommunications and Geography (London, 1993).
63. As Neil Smith argued in his critique of Manuel Castells, "capital and information are never entirely free of place, and spatial fluidity is only ever achieved via a parallel and deepening spatial fixity which at crucial moments reasserts itself, often violently"; "Spaces of Vulnerability" (n. 16 above), 69.
64. Abbate (n. 9 above), ch. 4. The three ARPA networks may have been heterogeneous in their physical method of operation, but they were homogeneous in their packet-switching basis, in their shared goals, and in their institutional management. And since the new Internet protocols were written to entirely replace the old ARPANET protocol, it is unclear whether this was actually an internetwork project or just a newer, more versatile network that was being created using reprogrammable components of an older network.
65. Edwards (n. 6 above); Abbate, ch. 1.
66. This is analogous to Hughes's "system builders," those innovators and entrepreneurs who combine not only material technologies but also sources of capital and management expertise into cohesive institutions with specific business agendas.
67. Edwards; Abbate, ch. 4.
68. The competitive advantage of each network was tied to its spatial and temporal relationship to this physical street address: a telephone might exist at the address, ready for use twenty-four hours a day, a letter carrier might visit the address once a day at a set time, and a telegraph messenger could visit the address twenty-four hours a day, with the added bonus of tracking down the addressee if he or she wasn't at the expected location. Interestingly, street addresses are still important, converging today not only with telephone numbers but with e-mail addresses (for an extra fee of thirty-six dollars a year) in the humble printed telephone directory; Joyce Cohen, "New Media Meets an Old Medium in the Phone Book," New York Times, 19 October 2000.
69. Daniel Bell, The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting (New York, 1973).
70. For an introduction to the sociology and anthropology of work, see Michael Burawoy, "The Anthropology of Industrial Work," Annual Review of Anthropology 8 (1979): 231-66, and Aihwa Ong, "Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity," Annual Review of Anthropology 20 (1991): 279-309.
71. For an introduction to the sociology and anthropology of work, see Michael Burawoy, "The Anthropology of Industrial Work," Annual Review of Anthropology 8 (1979): 231-66, and Aihwa Ong, "Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity," Annual Review of Anthropology 20 (1991): 279-309.
72. Key to the best work in this field is the recognition that the idea of "work" itself is socially constructed, not a problem-tree universal economic category; work produces values and social relations, not just commodities. See Sandra Wallman, ed., Social Anthropology of Work (London, 1979).
73. Note that this genre of the ethnography of work is quite distinct from the ethnography of laboratory practice in recent science and technology studies (STS) literature, though there are important connections to be made between them. On the STS ethnographies, see David J. Hess, "The New Ethnography and the Anthropology of Science and Technology," in Knowledge and Society: The Anthropology of Science and Technology, ed. David J. Hess and Linda L. Layne (Greenwich, Conn., 1992), 1-28; Gary Lee Downey and Joseph Dumit, eds., Cyborgs and Citadels: Anthropological Interventions in Emerging Sciences and Technologies (Seattle, 1997).
74. Note that this genre of the ethnography of work is quite distinct from the ethnography of laboratory practice in recent science and technology studies (STS) literature, though there are important connections to be made between them. On the STS ethnographies, see David J. Hess, "The New Ethnography and the Anthropology of Science and Technology," in Knowledge and Society: The Anthropology of Science and Technology, ed. David J. Hess and Linda L. Layne (Greenwich, Conn., 1992), 1-28; Gary Lee Downey and Joseph Dumit, eds., Cyborgs and Citadels: Anthropological Interventions in Emerging Sciences and Technologies (Seattle, 1997).
75. This is a Marxian framework, modified by the recognition that individual persons may in practice play more than one role simultaneously. Note as well that there is a sort of American exceptionalism here, since most other industrialized countries nationalized their telegraph and telephone networks together with their postal networks (England as early as 1868). See Jeffrey Kieve, The Electric Telegraph: A Social and Economic History (London, 1973).
76. Erica Schoenberger has argued that the strategic challenges of firms can be defined in terms of time and space since "the compulsion to eradicate spatial barriers to the free circulation of capital unavoidably produces spatial fixity and new spatial barriers which immobilize and/or channel capital geographically for considerable periods"; The Cultural Crisis of the Firm (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), 21-22.
77. For example, ARPA revised the IP address system to allow for more hosts, and they altered the function of their gateway machines from simply routing packets between networks to doing more translation of different protocols between networks. Abbate (n. 9 above), ch. 5.
78. Ruth Schwartz Cowan has urged historians using the technological systems approach to consider consumers at what she called the "consumption junction"; "The Consumption Junction: A Proposal for Research Strategies in the Sociology of Technology" in Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch (n. 13 above).
79. Abbate, ch. 3.
80. "The Net Gets Real," Economist, 15 January 2000.
81. For conflicting stories on the origin of the singing telegram (from two former Western Union employees), see Mike J. Rivise, Inside Western Union (New York, 1950), and George P. Oslin, One Man's Century: From the Deep South to the Top of the Big Apple (Macon, Ga., 1998). Note that the private teletype system crossed internetwork institutions in a similar way, pioneered by Western Union as the ultimate replacement for telegraph operators and messenger boys but proven in the marketplace by AT & T, which sent multiplexed telegraphic information over its telephone lines.
82. For conflicting stories on the origin of the singing telegram (from two former Western Union employees), see Mike J. Rivise, Inside Western Union (New York, 1950), and George P. Oslin, One Man's Century: From the Deep South to the Top of the Big Apple (Macon, Ga., 1998). Note that the private teletype system crossed internetwork institutions in a similar way, pioneered by Western Union as the ultimate replacement for telegraph operators and messenger boys but proven in the marketplace by AT & T, which sent multiplexed telegraphic information over its telephone lines.
83. These innovators are important but, just as with Hughes's system builders, they are usually the same inventor-entrepreneurs of Alfred Chandler's "visible hand" of insti-tutional management. David A. Hounshell, "Hughesian History of Technology and Chandlerian Business History: Parallels, Departures, and Critics," History and Technology 12 (1995): 205-24; Alfred D. Chandler Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).
84. These innovators are important but, just as with Hughes's system builders, they are usually the same inventor-entrepreneurs of Alfred Chandler's "visible hand" of insti-tutional management. David A. Hounshell, "Hughesian History of Technology and Chandlerian Business History: Parallels, Departures, and Critics," History and Technology 12 (1995): 205-24; Alfred D. Chandler Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).
85. Abbate (n. 9 above), ch. 2.
86. Abbate, p. 66. The phrase "creative destruction" comes from Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy (New York, 1947).
87. Larry Hirschhorn made a similar point about labor in postindustrial, cybernetically automated, continuous-process industries, arguing that as the complexity of the production process increased, so did the risks of downtime and failure due to unforeseen conditions - risks that no amount of preventative programming could eliminate. He advocated organizing firms into "learning organizations" that would educate, rather than de-skill, laborers. See Larry Hirschhorn, Beyond Mechanization: Work and Technology in a Postindustrial Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1984); also Shoshanna Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power (New York, 1988).
88. Larry Hirschhorn made a similar point about labor in postindustrial, cybernetically automated, continuous-process industries, arguing that as the complexity of the production process increased, so did the risks of downtime and failure due to unforeseen conditions - risks that no amount of preventative programming could eliminate. He advocated organizing firms into "learning organizations" that would educate, rather than de-skill, laborers. See Larry Hirschhorn, Beyond Mechanization: Work and Technology in a Postindustrial Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1984); also Shoshanna Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power (New York, 1988).
89. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (New York, 1990). As David Harvey noted, "[T]hrough the experience of everything from food, to culinary habits, music, television, entertainment, and cinema, it is now possible to experience the world's geography vicariously, as a simulacrum. The interweaving of simulacra in daily life brings together different worlds (of commodities) in the same space and time. But it does so in such a way as to conceal almost perfectly any trace of origin, of the labour processes that produced them, or of the social relations implicated in their production"; Condition of Postmodernity (n. 26 above), 300.
90. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (New York, 1990). As David Harvey noted, "[T]hrough the experience of everything from food, to culinary habits, music, television, entertainment, and cinema, it is now possible to experience the world's geography vicariously, as a simulacrum. The interweaving of simulacra in daily life brings together different worlds (of commodities) in the same space and time. But it does so in such a way as to conceal almost perfectly any trace of origin, of the labour processes that produced them, or of the social relations implicated in their production"; Condition of Postmodernity (n. 26 above), 300.
91. Ken Hillis, for example, argued that "[t]he activity performed by the telegraph - the transmission of information separated from an embodied messenger - though apparent to all users, was and remains invisible"; "On the Margins: The Invisibility of Communications in Geography," Progress in Human Geography 22 (1998): 543-66, emphasis in original.
92. Similarly, letter carriers wore military-style uniforms themselves, and telephone operators, or "hello girls," were trained in proper patterns of middle-class pronunciation.
93. With an eye to the spaces between networks, we can see how other groups of workers served boundary functions as well. Female telephone operators in the telegraph network worked with two supposedly competing technologies every day. Male lineworkers stringing telephone wires may not have realized what a large number of those wires were actually leased out to carry telegraph traffic. And even the same inventors and businessmen who built the networks in the first place rarely confined their efforts, their vision, or their stock portfolios to one network technology exclusively.
94. Though, as Philip Scranton argued over a decade ago, coherently drawing together labor history and the history of technology is in itself a worthy goal; "None-Too-Porous Boundaries: Labor History and the History of Technology," Technology and Culture 29 (1988): 722-43.
95. A good example is Kevin Borg's recent article exploring the history of automotive service work using Anthony Giddens's "structuration theory," arguing that "chauffeurs used new automotive technology to
96. A good example is Kevin Borg's recent article exploring the history of automotive service work using Anthony Giddens's "structuration theory," arguing that "chauffeurs used new automotive technology to enhance their social power," if only for a short period; "The 'Chauffeur Problem' in the Early Auto Era: Structuration Theory and the Users of Technology," Technology and Culture 40 (October 1999): 797-832. For a discussion of the structure/agency issue within the sociology of work, see Randy Hodson,"The Worker as Active Subject: Enlivening the 'New Sociology of Work,'" in The New Modern Times: Factors Reshaping the World of Work, ed. David B. Bills (Albany, N.Y., 1995), 253-80.
97. For example, Edwin Gabler showed how the very mobility of post-Civil War telegraph operators in the United States militated against their waging a successful strike against Western Union; The American Telegrapher: A Social History, 1860-1900 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1988).
98. Such as Robert X. Cringely, Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date (New York, 1996); Randall E. Stross, Eboys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work (New York, 2000); Michael Lewis, The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story (New York, 2000).
99. Such as Robert X. Cringely, Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date (New York, 1996); Randall E. Stross, Eboys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work (New York, 2000); Michael Lewis, The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story (New York, 2000).
100. Such as Robert X. Cringely, Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date (New York, 1996); Randall E. Stross, Eboys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work (New York, 2000); Michael Lewis, The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story (New York, 2000).
101. Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1974).
102. Michael Burawoy, Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism (Chicago, 1979).
103. For example, María Patricia Fernández-Kelly has explored the conditions of work and home life for women in the textile and electronics maquiladoras along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Robin Leidner has brilliantly compared the gendering of work in two types of service jobs. See María Patricia Fernández-Kelly, For We Are Sold, I and My People: Women and Industry in Mexico's Frontier (Albany, 1983); Robin Leidner, "Selling Hamburgers and Selling Insurance: Gender, Work and Identity in Interactive Service Jobs," Gender and Society 5 (1991): 154-77.
104. For example, María Patricia Fernández-Kelly has explored the conditions of work and home life for women in the textile and electronics maquiladoras along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Robin Leidner has brilliantly compared the gendering of work in two types of service jobs. See María Patricia Fernández-Kelly, For We Are Sold, I and My People: Women and Industry in Mexico's Frontier (Albany, 1983); Robin Leidner, "Selling Hamburgers and Selling Insurance: Gender, Work and Identity in Interactive Service Jobs," Gender and Society 5 (1991): 154-77.
105. Braverman, 301.
106. Eileen Boris and Cynthia R. Daniels, eds., Homework: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Paid Labor at Home (Urbana, Ill., 1989); Eileen Boris, Home to Work: Motherhood and the Politics of Industrial Homework in the United States (Cambridge, 1994); Eileen Boris and Elisabeth Prügl, eds., Homeworkers in Global Perspective: Invisible No More (New York, 1996).
107. Eileen Boris and Cynthia R. Daniels, eds., Homework: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Paid Labor at Home (Urbana, Ill., 1989); Eileen Boris, Home to Work: Motherhood and the Politics of Industrial Homework in the United States (Cambridge, 1994); Eileen Boris and Elisabeth Prügl, eds., Homeworkers in Global Perspective: Invisible No More (New York, 1996).
108. Eileen Boris and Cynthia R. Daniels, eds., Homework: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Paid Labor at Home (Urbana, Ill., 1989); Eileen Boris, Home to Work: Motherhood and the Politics of Industrial Homework in the United States (Cambridge, 1994); Eileen Boris and Elisabeth Prügl, eds., Homeworkers in Global Perspective: Invisible No More (New York, 1996).
109. Stephen R. Barley and Julian E. Orr, eds., Between Craft and Science: Technical Work in U.S. Settings (Ithaca, N.Y., 1997), 12.
110. Jeffrey Keefe and Denise Potosky,"Technical Dissonance: Conflicting Portraits of Technicians," in Barley and Orr, 53-81. (This may simply be my own bias as well, since I was trained in a university computer science department and worked as a computer programmer for about eight years.)
111. Jennifer S. Light, "When Computers Were Women," Technology and Culture 40 (1999): 455-83.
112. Barley and Orr, 12-14.
113. Peter Whalley and Stephen R. Barley, "Technical Work in the Division of Labor: Stalking the Wily Anomaly," in Barley and Orr, 23-52.
114. Keefe and Potosky; Steven Shapin, "The Invisible Technician," American Scientist 7 (1989): 554-63.
115. Julian E. Orr, Talking about Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job (Ithaca, N.Y., 1996).
116. Claudia H. Deutsch, "Xerox, Fading Copier King, Hasn't Used Its Innovations Well," New York Times, 19 October 2000.
117. Glenn Collins, "Selling Online, Delivering on Bikes: Low-Tech Couriers Thriving," New York Times, 24 December 1999.
118. See, for example, Dennis Hayes, Behind the Silicon Curtain: The Seductions of Work in a Lonely Era (Boston, 1989); Barbara Garson, The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past (New York, 1989); and especially the on-line newsletter CPU: Working in the Computer Industry (http://www.gocatgo.com/cpu/cpu.html). Interesting (though overly sensationalist and often dubious) firsthand anecdotal accounts of various forms of hidden information-technology work can be found in Chris Carlsson, ed., Bad Attitude: The Processed World Anthology (New York, 1990); Jeff Kelly, Best of Temp Slave! (Madison, Wise., 1997); and Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin, Netslaves: True Tales of Working the Web (New York, 2000).
119. See, for example, Dennis Hayes, Behind the Silicon Curtain: The Seductions of Work in a Lonely Era (Boston, 1989); Barbara Garson, The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past (New York, 1989); and especially the on-line newsletter CPU: Working in the Computer Industry (http://www.gocatgo.com/cpu/cpu.html). Interesting (though overly sensationalist and often dubious) firsthand anecdotal accounts of various forms of hidden information-technology work can be found in Chris Carlsson, ed., Bad Attitude: The Processed World Anthology (New York, 1990); Jeff Kelly, Best of Temp Slave! (Madison, Wise., 1997); and Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin, Netslaves: True Tales of Working the Web (New York, 2000).
120. See, for example, Dennis Hayes, Behind the Silicon Curtain: The Seductions of Work in a Lonely Era (Boston, 1989); Barbara Garson, The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past (New York, 1989); and especially the on-line newsletter CPU: Working in the Computer Industry (http://www.gocatgo.com/cpu/cpu.html). Interesting (though overly sensationalist and often dubious) firsthand anecdotal accounts of various forms of hidden information-technology work can be found in Chris Carlsson, ed., Bad Attitude: The Processed World Anthology (New York, 1990); Jeff Kelly, Best of Temp Slave! (Madison, Wise., 1997); and Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin, Netslaves: True Tales of Working the Web (New York, 2000).
121. See, for example, Dennis Hayes, Behind the Silicon Curtain: The Seductions of Work in a Lonely Era (Boston, 1989); Barbara Garson, The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past (New York, 1989); and especially the on-line newsletter CPU: Working in the Computer Industry (http://www.gocatgo.com/cpu/cpu.html). Interesting (though overly sensationalist and often dubious) firsthand anecdotal accounts of various forms of hidden information-technology work can be found in Chris Carlsson, ed., Bad Attitude: The Processed World Anthology (New York, 1990); Jeff Kelly, Best of Temp Slave! (Madison, Wise., 1997); and Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin, Netslaves: True Tales of Working the Web (New York, 2000).
122. See, for example, Dennis Hayes, Behind the Silicon Curtain: The Seductions of Work in a Lonely Era (Boston, 1989); Barbara Garson, The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past (New York, 1989); and especially the on-line newsletter CPU: Working in the Computer Industry (http://www.gocatgo.com/cpu/cpu.html). Interesting (though overly sensationalist and often dubious) firsthand anecdotal accounts of various forms of hidden information-technology work can be found in Chris Carlsson, ed., Bad Attitude: The Processed World Anthology (New York, 1990); Jeff Kelly, Best of Temp Slave! (Madison, Wise., 1997); and Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin, Netslaves: True Tales of Working the Web (New York, 2000).
123. See, for example, Dennis Hayes, Behind the Silicon Curtain: The Seductions of Work in a Lonely Era (Boston, 1989); Barbara Garson, The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past (New York, 1989); and especially the on-line newsletter CPU: Working in the Computer Industry (http://www.gocatgo.com/cpu/cpu.html). Interesting (though overly sensationalist and often dubious) firsthand anecdotal accounts of various forms of hidden information-technology work can be found in Chris Carlsson, ed., Bad Attitude: The Processed World Anthology (New York, 1990); Jeff Kelly, Best of Temp Slave! (Madison, Wise., 1997); and Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin, Netslaves: True Tales of Working the Web (New York, 2000).
124. Research on these two job categories is sparse (and that is one of the reasons I consider them here). Many of my observations in this section come from my own university training and personal work experience in the computer industry through the mid-1990s.
125. Cringely (n. 54 above), 241-42. Note that this is the only time such workers are mentioned in his popular account of the birth of the microcomputer industry.
126. Joel Kotkin, "Unions See a Fertile Field at Lower End of High Tech," New York Times, 26 September 1999; David Leonhardt, "Computer Technicians Learn They Are Indispensable Parts," New York Times, 5 January 2000. Even a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars per year might be difficult to live on in some of the hyperinflated residential housing markets surrounding high-tech corridors; see Evelyn Nieves, "Homeless on $50,000 a Year in Luxuriant Silicon Valley," New York Times, 20 February 2000. On contingent work, see Kathleen Barker and Kathleen Christensen, eds., Contingent Work: American Employment Relations in Transition (Ithaca, N.Y., 1998).
127. Joel Kotkin, "Unions See a Fertile Field at Lower End of High Tech," New York Times, 26 September 1999; David Leonhardt, "Computer Technicians Learn They Are Indispensable Parts," New York Times, 5 January 2000. Even a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars per year might be difficult to live on in some of the hyperinflated residential housing markets surrounding high-tech corridors; see Evelyn Nieves, "Homeless on $50,000 a Year in Luxuriant Silicon Valley," New York Times, 20 February 2000. On contingent work, see Kathleen Barker and Kathleen Christensen, eds., Contingent Work: American Employment Relations in Transition (Ithaca, N.Y., 1998).
128. Joel Kotkin, "Unions See a Fertile Field at Lower End of High Tech," New York Times, 26 September 1999; David Leonhardt, "Computer Technicians Learn They Are Indispensable Parts," New York Times, 5 January 2000. Even a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars per year might be difficult to live on in some of the hyperinflated residential housing markets surrounding high-tech corridors; see Evelyn Nieves, "Homeless on $50,000 a Year in Luxuriant Silicon Valley," New York Times, 20 February 2000. On contingent work, see Kathleen Barker and Kathleen Christensen, eds., Contingent Work: American Employment Relations in Transition (Ithaca, N.Y., 1998).
129. Joel Kotkin, "Unions See a Fertile Field at Lower End of High Tech," New York Times, 26 September 1999; David Leonhardt, "Computer Technicians Learn They Are Indispensable Parts," New York Times, 5 January 2000. Even a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars per year might be difficult to live on in some of the hyperinflated residential housing markets surrounding high-tech corridors; see Evelyn Nieves, "Homeless on $50,000 a Year in Luxuriant Silicon Valley," New York Times, 20 February 2000. On contingent work, see Kathleen Barker and Kathleen Christensen, eds., Contingent Work: American Employment Relations in Transition (Ithaca, N.Y., 1998).
130. The temporal variability and urgency of help-line requests has even spawned a sort of on-line auction for technical assistance: "Once a user types in a question, Expertcity gives its online experts two minutes to respond. Almost immediately, someone . . . responded and said he could solve my problem in a session that he estimated would take no more than 20 minutes and cost me $20." Michel Marriott, "Fast PC Help for a Fee," New York Times, 2 November 2000.
131. Brian T. Pentland, "Bleeding Edge Epistemology: Practical Problem Solving in Software Support Help Lines," in Barley and Orr (n. 60 above), 113-28. See also Brian T. Pentland, "Organizing Moves in Software Support Hot Lines," Administrative Science Quarterly 37 (1992): 527-48, in which Pentland analyzes the "moves" that support workers used to either ask for help on a call from another member in the organization or transfer responsibility for the call to another member. Pentland effectively illustrates the "ritual structure" of asking for and giving help, and how this depends on and further affects one's perceived status within the organization.
132. Brian T. Pentland, "Bleeding Edge Epistemology: Practical Problem Solving in Software Support Help Lines," in Barley and Orr (n. 60 above), 113-28. See also Brian T. Pentland, "Organizing Moves in Software Support Hot Lines," Administrative Science Quarterly 37 (1992): 527-48, in which Pentland analyzes the "moves" that support workers used to either ask for help on a call from another member in the organization or transfer responsibility for the call to another member. Pentland effectively illustrates the "ritual structure" of asking for and giving help, and how this depends on and further affects one's perceived status within the organization.
133. Stacia E. Zabusky, "Computers, Clients, and Expertise: Negotiating Technical Identities in a Nontechnical World," in Barley and Orr, 129-53.
134. William J. Mitchell, City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), 9, 149.
135. One of the best examples of this is a historical analysis not of a communications network, but of a distribution network. Susan Porter Benson has shown how the job category of the department store salesgirl was constructed to fill the border space between the affluent customer and the behind-the-scenes buyer. But being in this space meant mediating between the gender and class expectations of both groups. See Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890-1940 (Urbana, Ill., 1986).
136. See, for example, Heidi I. Hartmann, Robert E. Kraut, and Louise A. Tilly, eds., Computer Chips and Paper Clips: Technology and Women's Employment, 2 vols. (Washington D.C., 1986-87). Even computer-simulated human interactions on the Internet - such as a robotic voice reading a text article - are currently constructed with gender stereotypes firmly in mind. See Anne Eisenberg, "Mars and Venus, On the Net: Gender Stereotypes Prevail," New York Times, 12 October 2000.
137. See, for example, Heidi I. Hartmann, Robert E. Kraut, and Louise A. Tilly, eds., Computer Chips and Paper Clips: Technology and Women's Employment, 2 vols. (Washington D.C., 1986-87). Even computer-simulated human interactions on the Internet -such as a robotic voice reading a text article - are currently constructed with gender stereotypes firmly in mind. See Anne Eisenberg, "Mars and Venus, On the Net: Gender Stereotypes Prevail," New York Times, 12 October 2000.
138. See, for example, Susan Hanson and Geraldine Pratt, Gender, Work, and Space (London, 1995).
139. As David Harvey has wryly observed, "Unlike other commodities, labor power has to go home every night," The Urban Experience (Baltimore, 1989), 19.
140. We could even take this one step further: information networks themselves may affect the ability of laborers in different or distant markets to access job information about production facilities, or even to access those facilities remotely themselves through "telework." Thus information networks are grounded in labor markets, but may affect those labor markets dialectically, so the spatiality of the problem comes full circle. For recent research on such questions of telecommunications and urban space, see Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places (London, 1996). For a sample of the range of such studies in the pre-Web years, see W. H. Dutton, J. Blumler, and K. Kraemer, eds., Wired Cities: Shaping the Future of Communications (Boston, 1987); Mark E. Hepworth, Geography of the Information Economy (New York, 1990); John Brotchie, Michael Batty, and Peter Hall, eds., Cities of the 21st Century: New Technologies and Spatial Systems (London, 1991). For post-Web studies, see Peter Droege, ed., Intelligent Environments: Spatial Aspects of the Information Revolution (Amsterdam, 1997); John Downey and Jim McGuigan, eds., Technocities (London, 1999); Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above).
141. We could even take this one step further: information networks themselves may affect the ability of laborers in different or distant markets to access job information about production facilities, or even to access those facilities remotely themselves through "telework." Thus information networks are grounded in labor markets, but may affect those labor markets dialectically, so the spatiality of the problem comes full circle. For recent research on such questions of telecommunications and urban space, see Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places (London, 1996). For a sample of the range of such studies in the pre-Web years, see W. H. Dutton, J. Blumler, and K. Kraemer, eds., Wired Cities: Shaping the Future of Communications (Boston, 1987); Mark E. Hepworth, Geography of the Information Economy (New York, 1990); John Brotchie, Michael Batty, and Peter Hall, eds., Cities of the 21st Century: New Technologies and Spatial Systems (London, 1991). For post-Web studies, see Peter Droege, ed., Intelligent Environments: Spatial Aspects of the Information Revolution (Amsterdam, 1997); John Downey and Jim McGuigan, eds., Technocities (London, 1999); Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above).
142. We could even take this one step further: information networks themselves may affect the ability of laborers in different or distant markets to access job information about production facilities, or even to access those facilities remotely themselves through "telework." Thus information networks are grounded in labor markets, but may affect those labor markets dialectically, so the spatiality of the problem comes full circle. For recent research on such questions of telecommunications and urban space, see Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places (London, 1996). For a sample of the range of such studies in the pre-Web years, see W. H. Dutton, J. Blumler, and K. Kraemer, eds., Wired Cities: Shaping the Future of Communications (Boston, 1987); Mark E. Hepworth, Geography of the Information Economy (New York, 1990); John Brotchie, Michael Batty, and Peter Hall, eds., Cities of the 21st Century: New Technologies and Spatial Systems (London, 1991). For post-Web studies, see Peter Droege, ed., Intelligent Environments: Spatial Aspects of the Information Revolution (Amsterdam, 1997); John Downey and Jim McGuigan, eds., Technocities (London, 1999); Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above).
143. We could even take this one step further: information networks themselves may affect the ability of laborers in different or distant markets to access job information about production facilities, or even to access those facilities remotely themselves through "telework." Thus information networks are grounded in labor markets, but may affect those labor markets dialectically, so the spatiality of the problem comes full circle. For recent research on such questions of telecommunications and urban space, see Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places (London, 1996). For a sample of the range of such studies in the pre-Web years, see W. H. Dutton, J. Blumler, and K. Kraemer, eds., Wired Cities: Shaping the Future of Communications (Boston, 1987); Mark E. Hepworth, Geography of the Information Economy (New York, 1990); John Brotchie, Michael Batty, and Peter Hall, eds., Cities of the 21st Century: New Technologies and Spatial Systems (London, 1991). For post-Web studies, see Peter Droege, ed., Intelligent Environments: Spatial Aspects of the Information Revolution (Amsterdam, 1997); John Downey and Jim McGuigan, eds., Technocities (London, 1999); Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above).
144. We could even take this one step further: information networks themselves may affect the ability of laborers in different or distant markets to access job information about production facilities, or even to access those facilities remotely themselves through "telework." Thus information networks are grounded in labor markets, but may affect those labor markets dialectically, so the spatiality of the problem comes full circle. For recent research on such questions of telecommunications and urban space, see Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places (London, 1996). For a sample of the range of such studies in the pre-Web years, see W. H. Dutton, J. Blumler, and K. Kraemer, eds., Wired Cities: Shaping the Future of Communications (Boston, 1987); Mark E. Hepworth, Geography of the Information Economy (New York, 1990); John Brotchie, Michael Batty, and Peter Hall, eds., Cities of the 21st Century: New Technologies and Spatial Systems (London, 1991). For post-Web studies, see Peter Droege, ed., Intelligent Environments: Spatial Aspects of the Information Revolution (Amsterdam, 1997); John Downey and Jim McGuigan, eds., Technocities (London, 1999); Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above).
145. We could even take this one step further: information networks themselves may affect the ability of laborers in different or distant markets to access job information about production facilities, or even to access those facilities remotely themselves through "telework." Thus information networks are grounded in labor markets, but may affect those labor markets dialectically, so the spatiality of the problem comes full circle. For recent research on such questions of telecommunications and urban space, see Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places (London, 1996). For a sample of the range of such studies in the pre-Web years, see W. H. Dutton, J. Blumler, and K. Kraemer, eds., Wired Cities: Shaping the Future of Communications (Boston, 1987); Mark E. Hepworth, Geography of the Information Economy (New York, 1990); John Brotchie, Michael Batty, and Peter Hall, eds., Cities of the 21st Century: New Technologies and Spatial Systems (London, 1991). For post-Web studies, see Peter Droege, ed., Intelligent Environments: Spatial Aspects of the Information Revolution (Amsterdam, 1997); John Downey and Jim McGuigan, eds., Technocities (London, 1999); Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above).
146. We could even take this one step further: information networks themselves may affect the ability of laborers in different or distant markets to access job information about production facilities, or even to access those facilities remotely themselves through "telework." Thus information networks are grounded in labor markets, but may affect those labor markets dialectically, so the spatiality of the problem comes full circle. For recent research on such questions of telecommunications and urban space, see Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places (London, 1996). For a sample of the range of such studies in the pre-Web years, see W. H. Dutton, J. Blumler, and K. Kraemer, eds., Wired Cities: Shaping the Future of Communications (Boston, 1987); Mark E. Hepworth, Geography of the Information Economy (New York, 1990); John Brotchie, Michael Batty, and Peter Hall, eds., Cities of the 21st Century: New Technologies and Spatial Systems (London, 1991). For post-Web studies, see Peter Droege, ed., Intelligent Environments: Spatial Aspects of the Information Revolution (Amsterdam, 1997); John Downey and Jim McGuigan, eds., Technocities (London, 1999); Wheeler, Aoyama, and Warf (n. 9 above).
147. Even today, researchers exploring the diffusion of early-twentieth-century communications technology in late-twentieth-century developing countries realize that telephone and postal services still substitute for each other, so that it makes sense to analyze the whole communications sector together. See Robert J. Saunders, Jeremy J. Warford, and Björn Wellenius, Telecommunications and Economic Development (Baltimore, 1994).