Communication and Transportation, History of

Franz Baltzarek, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Abstract

The history of communication refers to a broad and loosely integrated field of historical research, which includes parts of the
history of transport, traffic, communication, media, and information techniques. It is a relatively young field and a new point
of view within historical science. Some aspects have been partly studied by historians – economic historians in particular – for
a long time, especially the role of new technologies in transportation and traffic and the history of the railways, ships, and
automobiles, and telephone and telegraph. The history of journalism and newspapers, as well as the history of photography
and films, had been studied for a long time. Since the 1970s new questions and combinations have arisen in respect of the
revolution in communication (including computation, multimedia, and the Internet) and these have given an impetus to
broader research.

The history of communication is a broad and loosely integrated Economists, especially those in public finance, normally
field of research that includes elements of the history of define communication and transport as a necessary prerequi-
transport, traffic, communication, media, and information site for development and growth, calling it ‘infrastructure,’
techniques. It is a relatively new field and has developed (Hirschman, 1958; Tinbergen, 1962; Jochimsen, 1962, 1966).
an innovative perspective in historical scholarship. Some Before the production of goods for a broader market, a well-
aspects of communication history have been partly studied functioning transport and communication system is essential.
by historians – economic historians in particular – for a long The term ‘infrastructure’ is a word that originally came from
time, especially the role of new technologies in transportation French railway idiom and was adopted by NATO after World
and traffic; the history of the railways, ships, and automobiles; War II. Later economists used it as a new term. Good ‘material
and the development of the telephone and telegraph. But infrastructure’ includes the communication possibilities of
there are also numerous more recent developments, some of roads, canals, railways, ships, and, of course, all media
which will be dealt with here. equipment.
But ‘infrastructure’ includes not only ‘material infrastruc-
ture,’ it also refers to ‘immaterial infrastructure,’ or learning,
Overlapping Concepts education, schools at different levels, universities, research
institutes, etc. The role of communication in the diffusion of
The term ‘communication’ was first used in England within the knowledge and information is evident. According to Kuznets
sectors of transport, commerce, and trade immediately before (1959, 1965, 1966) ‘infrastructure’ was one of the most
the Industrial Revolution. It was the time of the extension of important prerequisites for the European Industrial Revolu-
the road system with turnpike roads, of new attempts at canal tion. It guaranteed stable economic growth, the international
building, and of the emendation of the British postal system. and regional division of labor, made an impact on specializa-
The improvement of roads; the regulations governing the use of tion, and ensured better economic, social, and cultural
rivers; the construction of canals; and the improvement of integration.
coaches and cars, boats, and river- and ocean-going ships, were Today ‘communication’ is used especially in connection
aimed at more transport capacity, the reduction of high costs of with the media. The rapid development of the media since
transportation, and the widening of local and regional markets 1970 culminating in the Internet, necessitated a new classifi-
to national and international parameters. The Industrial cation of all items of media techniques and their former use:
Revolution from the 1820s onwards opened up transportation from the human voice and messengers to ballad singers or
with the construction of railroads and steamships; and actors in a theater; from writing, handwritten codices, and
communication was improved by the telegraph and telephone. letters to printing in books, pamphlets, newspapers, and
Today these forms of facilitating the services of commerce, posters or typewriting; from pictures, drawings, and paintings
trade, and tourism – including the later inventions of automo- to photos and since the late 1990s scanning possibilities; from
biles, progress in the building of roads, and the development of messages given through drums, written on stones, papyrus,
air transport – are described under infrastructure and its parchment, and paper to transmission by telephone, telegraph,
technical equipment. There is therefore an overlap between film, radio and TV, CD-ROM, DVD, the computer, and the
infrastructure and communication and the last term has become Internet. As a result, the discipline of journalism has widened
more and more subsumed under the name of ‘media.’ its scope to include all the mass media and even studies their
Communication nowadays is only partly concerned with history. More and more sociological and psychological aspects
matters of transport and traffic and there is danger of a one-sided were introduced in defining the different stages of mankind’s
contraction of the content of this term, because the media and communication modes. In this context, M.T. Poe (2010) speaks
media devices are only partly subsumed under infrastructure. of five stages of development of mankind from a ‘homo

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.62105-0 273
274 Communication and Transportation, History of

loquens’ to a ‘homo scriptor,’ a ‘homo lector,’ ‘homo videns,’ leadership originates from better and new infrastructure and
and then to a ‘homo somnian’ (humanity in the age of the the organization of transportation and the media. Every step of
Internet). European development since the Middle Ages can be seen to
There is also an overlap with the term ‘information,’ which have happened in conjunction with big spurts and crucial
is especially stressed in economics and business science as an points in the improvement of each new media and infra-
important outcome of communication and defined as the structural equipment.
ability to share information. Since the 1960s ‘information’ has The European case also seems to show that with the
been seen as the ‘new immaterial resource’ in physiology, improvement of media and transportation, a growing
sociology, psychology, pedagogy, linguistics and information displacement of the state and the old elite went hand in hand
science, ethnology, political sciences and law, and, last but not with the increasing participation of human beings in commu-
least, in a bundle of technical sciences. nication. N. Elias (1939) in his famous book on civilization has
In economics, for example, it was F.A. Hayek (1968) who pointed out the strict limitations of monopoly power in
described markets as spontaneous networks of information western societies. This freed the way for more and more social
about goods and services. In a competitive market, the profits groups and individuals to use communication and trans-
make it possible to have and to use more information than portation techniques – from the cursus publicus of the Roman
normal and provide information easier, faster, and cheaper. Empire (which was only open for the purposes of the State) to
Market prices in normal (competitive) situations provide very the new postal system at the beginning of Early Modern Times;
precise information about shortages and abundances, qualities, from the grand tours of the aristocracy and the commercial
monopolies, and so on. Business scientists study the organi- journeys of single merchants to mass tourism; from illiteracy to
zation of firms and the optimization of information within dense school systems; from the handwritten codices of the
business entities and they stress ‘information’ as an important monks to Gutenberg’s first printed Bible and Jerry Cotton; from
factor of production. the transport of gold, silver, silk, and amber to the transport of
As Pool (1963) points out, communication is a fundamental bulk goods over the whole globe; from the limited diffusion of
necessity for human social action. Therefore we can distinguish knowledge and messages by fire signals, letters, etc. to the world
between: (1) interpersonal communication ¼ information wide web in the ‘global village’ with a ‘global information
exchange within an individual person; (2) intrapersonal com- infrastructure.’
munication ¼ information exchange between two or more
persons; and (3) media-bound communication ¼ exchange of
Phases of Development in Europe
information between media producers and media consumers
(in mass consumption). Since the 1980s communication has Historians and media specialists think that within western
come to mean not only exchange of information between culture one can find four revolutions and periods in commu-
human beings but also between computers. nication and transport development: (1) the Middle Ages
The development of communication and transportation (especially from eighth to fourteenth century AD); (2) the Early
possibilities shows, in the very long run, a dramatic widening Modern Times (fifteenth–seventeenth century AD); (3) the
of the abilities and capacities of human communication. From onset of and then the Industrial Revolution (eighteenth–first
the stages of primarily personal experience of communication half of the nineteenth century AD); and (4) the Communica-
by ears and eyes, it shifted to a secondary system which is tion Revolution, beginning in the last decades of the twentieth
technically arranged and represents ‘artificial’ communication century.
(S. Krämer, 1997). Today this ‘artificial’ communication has M. Weber (1896) in his famous article on the decay of the
reached a peak in the new media possibilities of TV, the PC, and Roman world sees the communication and transportation
the Internet. McLuhan (1964) points out that individuals deficit in the Roman Empire as the single, main cause of its
recognize their environment primarily through the media, decline. He argues that all ancient high civilizations from
which increasingly use the new techniques of electronically China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Greek world were river-
transmitting and storing information. His diagnosis is that ‘the and shore/coastal-oriented civilizations. The failure of the
medium is the message.’ Roman Empire was that it went deeper and deeper into the
According to N. Luhmann (1981) social systems can be European continent. Though the quality of Roman road
defined as the possibilities of human beings (in their time– building was very good and a relay system of changing tired for
space related contexts) to take part in the experiences, proce- fresh horses enabled people to cover distances as far as 300 km
dures, and activities of society. Their ability to participate is, a day, the ancient cursus publicus had not enough impact on
however, dependent on the availability of communication and common trade, commerce, and communication, because it
transport equipment and techniques. Religious and political was not open to the common man.
barriers or facilitations; problems of economic and social The Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times in Europe
inequalities; and the concept of ‘property rights’ play a role. found new answers and, in the long run, more stable solutions
The historical sciences, i.e., political, social, and economic in communication, and thus prepared the way for the great
history, as well as the history of technology, study the causes spurt of European civilization which, from the sixteenth
and consequences of the communication process from antiq- century AD onwards, left behind the older and richer civiliza-
uity to modern times. As communication and transport are tions of Asia. In The Middle Ages (from the tenth and eleventh
important prerequisites of development and globalization, one century AD onwards) the feudalistic system weakened the state
has to examine very thoroughly the rise of the West to see how and centralized authority, but strengthened local and regional
it obtained leadership over the East. To a large extent, this authorities. At this time, dense networks of more or less
 Communication and Transportation, History of 275

autonomous cities were created, in which trade and handicraft opened up possibilities for participation in political and reli-
were defined as a primary privilege of citizens and new, gious debates; and the newspapers opened the way to inform
dynamic dimensions of the concept of property rights’ were a growing number of readers about recent events in society.
introduced to the feudal manors. New communication and The sovereigns of territories reorganized their postal system
information techniques and systems were tested. We can see and widened communication possibilities – for example, in
this in regional and interregional trade with new types of 1486 AD the ‘Kurfürstliche Botenanstalt’ was introduced in
merchants and new commercial institutions (such as fairs and Brandenburg. In 1490 AD the postal system in the German
marketplaces), trade guilds, commercial law, special organiza- Reich was reorganized under Maximilian I. In 1516 AD the
tional forms of storing, borrowing, and changing money – all Vienna–Brussels postline was introduced, while the Brussels–
these were the outcome of perpetual communication. The Rome postline was introduced in 1522 AD by Thurn and
consequence was a very rapid diffusion of technical knowledge Taxis of Vienna-Nurenberg. The new communication advan-
in mining, architecture, handicraft, and agriculture. tage cleared the way for an European expansion over the
This new system was open for inventions from the Orient, Atlantic and created a second West in the New World of
the Arabs, and the Islamic world and accepted new insights America.
from China and India. Technical inventions which revolu- The third revolution began before the Industrial Revolution
tionized communication and transportation were the horse and influenced the period up to the present day in three stages.
collar (tenth century, used in China since 450 AD) and the In the first stage, the mercantile system introduced more regular
stirrup. From 1200 AD onwards the diffusion of the use of Arab traffic, a regular postal system, and supported canal- and road-
numbers began and made trade much easier. The compass and building. Milestones in France included the ‘Canal du Center’
the compass needle (used in China from 1075 AD onwards), between the Loire and the Saône (1555 AD) and the ‘Canal du
adopted from about 1200 AD, improved navigation. Though Midi’ between Southern France and the Atlantic (1666–81 AD).
the quality of the techniques of Roman road building could not Soon after, many canals in German territories, in the Dutch
be attained, the opening up of roads to everybody was a big Lands, and in England were built. The introduction of railways
improvement on the cursus publicus in the ancient Roman from the 1820s and 1830s onwards, the intensive use of
world. In about 1380 AD cities, religious orders, and guilds steamships from the 1850s and 1860s onwards, the common
introduced the new system of sending messages regularly and use of telegraph, telephone, and the overseas cable since the
over long distances through private postal systems. 1850s to 1870s, (and especially the spectacular opening of the
Predominantly face-to-face communication, using primarily Suez and the Panama Canals) marked the second step, which
oral means of information, shifted more and more to a written reached its peak in a highly integrated global world economy
media stage. The monasteries and the first universities with before World War I.
already-formed libraries had a great impact on learning and The automobile and new road-building – especially in the
knowledge. From the middle of the fourteenth century AD form of highways – and the victory of the street over the railway
onwards, the improvement of shipping on the rivers through and the airplane, widened communication and transportation
the construction of canals and canal locks began. Measuring possibilities in the following interwar period. This brought
time took on new dimensions with the invention of more greater reductions in the regional differences in prices, greater
precise clocks with wheels at about 1330 AD. From the mid- allocations of production and resources, more division of
fourteenth century AD there were clocks on the towers of labor, mass production for wide national and foreign markets,
churches. In 1510 AD, the first pocket watches appeared. standardization, and the unification of languages, morals, and
The Early Modern Times brought about the second revo- tastes. The third step began in about 1970 with the ‘post-
lution of communication in Europe. The adoption of Chinese industrial phase’ or the ‘age of information.’ The multimedia
navigation techniques was completed; the compass freed the revolution brought the technical inventions of ISDN, the
way for discoveries and the exploration of the New World. mobile phone (cellular phone), the fax, the PC, and the
Trade in mass goods began. This became easier when planta- Internet (www, online and e-mail), and digital forms of TV,
tions began to produce ‘fungible goods’ (like tea, coffee, cotton, broadcasting, and printing – the ‘information superhighway’.
and tobacco), which enabled a new trade on commodity The economic consequences were e-commerce, telebanking,
markets. more foreign investment in many countries, and a very sharp
The production and the use of paper and the idea of the decrease in the costs for information and transport, globaliza-
movable type for printing (Johannes Gutenberg, 1397–1468 – tion, digital traffic engineering, and teleworking. The socio-
also of Chinese origin; the first printed book appeared in China cultural consequences were teleteaching, a networked scientific
in the sixth century AD) brought about the shift from a ‘written’ community, and telemedicine. The political consequences were
to a ‘printed’ culture. Books now could be printed at a relatively e-government and smart cards for electronic administration
low price and in large numbers. The woodcut print (first used systems.
in 1400 AD) and the copperplate print (first used in 1446 AD)
now could be combined with the new printing technique.
Historiographical Trends, Further Research, and New Fields
Pamphlets were printed and could be easily distributed.
Political and religious controversies, teaching, and learning The historiography of former times seldom studied commu-
took on new dimensions. Newspapers were introduced. The nication and transportation. Since the turn of the nineteenth
monopoly on science and information was broken. The book century, ‘economic history’ achieved an independent status and
became important for the unlimited storage and diffusion of transportation problems were described under the aspect of
information. The pamphlet was used for political discourse and commerce. In the period before World War I in nearly all
276 Communication and Transportation, History of

industrialized countries, the first technical museums were canals, and new media techniques. The unification and
created. They had a great impact on the study of the history standardization of goods also brought improvement,
of technology and innovations, especially railways, cars, especially through the creation of ‘fungible’ goods, wherein
automobiles, ships, airplanes, and information devices like the one item stands as guarantee of quality for all the other
telephone and telegraph. The history of technology became pieces of this product. Markets could thus be transformed
a new subdiscipline within economic history. In the last few partly into markets with ‘fungible’ goods. The exchange in
decades, the science of journalism has widened to a science of products for certain metals and for certain crops, especially
media and examines all media, especially mass media, in the tropical plantation crops like cotton, tea, coffee, sugar, etc.,
historical context. Today a modern history of communication was born. This facilitated economic communication
has to combine all these fields in cooperation with other social enormously. As the qualities of these goods were defined
and economic disciplines. ex ante and were well known, merchants could deal in great
This broad approach is also represented by the International volumes of these goods and articles without actually
Communication Association (ICA). Its forerunners go back to bringing them physically to the markets. Transaction costs
1950; since 2003, ICA is officially associated with the United were thus dramatically reduced.
Nations as an international nongovernmental association. ICA 2. In combination with stock exchanges the experiences with
also has a section studying communication history. ‘fungible’ goods were transferred in the seventeenth century to
There are, of course, many possibilities for further historical the financial sector. The creation of fungible bonds for the
research in the field, e.g., studies on the regional, national, and state and public authorities (instead of individual obligations
worldwide diffusion of communication and transportation for single lenders in former times, which could not easily be
techniques; crowding out and/or supplementary processes transferred to other capitalists) pulled hidden private stock-
between the different communication technologies; the social piles of wealth into the public economy and brought the
consequences of media revolutions; the impact of the media money into the hands of sovereigns and governments. This
and the transport revolution on political situations and mili- idea spread to fungible shares for enterprises. Now it became
tary conflicts; the access to communication and information possible to erect big enterprises in the form of joint stock
techniques; religious and political control and inhibition of companies. The first joint stock companies were firms within
communication (censorship); the effects of the transport the trading sector, followed by companies in infrastructure
revolution within economic development; the role of official and communication; by companies in the banking system;
and nonofficial statistics in information about economies; and and last of all by big industrial firms.
the consequences of changing communication and trans- 3. The next point in this development was the improvement of
portation in mass tourism, leisure, and hobbies. Other possi- the financial mediation of banks. A new type of bank
bilities include the rise of special cultural forms, traditions, and developed, which brought together people who had money
customs concerning, for example, letter writing, traveling by but did not need it at the time and people who did not have
coach, railroad, automobile, ship, and airplane, and studies of enough money to make productive investments in business.
the intensification of communication in personally written as The ‘goldsmith bankers’ of London were the first to succeed
well as in digital communication. at this business, because they found out that the commu-
Even completely new fields can be developed under the nicative role of a bank has to be the transformation of risk,
aegis of communication. One example may be the creation of of terms, and of size. Fungibility and the new communi-
European ‘financial intermediation’ in banking and in stock cative role of banks became the main facilitators for
exchanges. It developed as an important new way of commu- a ‘financial revolution,’ which was a precondition of the
nication in the economic and business sphere of the seven- financing of the Industrial Revolution.
teenth and eighteenth centuries. 4. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century new steps in
How to finance firms and enterprises and how to finance financial communication have been taken, especially in the
states and their budgets – these are the important questions in context of the PC and Internet systems. New generations of
every modern economy. In former times people who had large financial products have arisen, including e-banking and new
savings and lent to the state or to private entrepreneurs could techniques of worldwide speculations (high-frequency
not get back the money before the end of the agreed term. So, trading).
normally, the only possibility was to hold large stockpiles
of money, without being able to lend it, in order to remain
See also: Advertising and Advertisements; Agenda Setting,
liquid at any one time. This problem was shared by wealthy
Media Effects on; Ethnocentrism; Film History; Narrative,
individuals and institutions, such as insurance companies,
Sociology of; Political Advertising; Public Sphere and the
managements of orphans’ properties, etc. No civilization had
Media; Tactile Maps in Geography; Visual Images in the Media.
managed these problems adequately until Europe found new
ways of communication to bring together lenders and
borrowers. There are four areas that highlight this information
and communication revolution in banking since the seven-
teenth century AD. Bibliography

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