Reid, Alex Communications EDRS PRICE on Technology. Now
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 062 803 EM 009 846 AUTHOR Reid, Alex TITLE New Directio:Is inTelecommunications Research. INSTITUTION Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, New York,N.Y. PUB DATE Jun 71 NOTE 62p.; Report of the SloanCommission cn Cable Communications EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29 DESCRIPTCRS Cable Television; City Planning;Communications; Human Engineering; InformationSystems; Information Theory; Man Machine Systems; *MediaResearch; *Research Needs; *Telecommunication;Telephone Communications Industry IDENTIFIERS *Sloan Commission on CableCommunications ABSTRACT Telecommunications research has been focusedmainly on technology. Nowresearch about the human factorsis crucial. This can be divided intofour areas.(1) TLe needs telecommunicationsmust satisfy--needs can be extrapolated from currentbehavior.(2) The technological alternatives available--importantdevelopments are being made in transmission andswitching equipment and user terminals. (3) The effectiveness of thealternatives for meeting the needs--studies should combine the laboratoryand outside world and should focus on typical consumers aswell as business users.(4) The secondary effects--impact studies aredifficult and usually begin after the impact has been felt. Animpact study approach can be to ask what constraints would beloosened by the presence of a technological development. For example, lower costtelecommunications would remove one constraint on longdistance calls and could lead to new group associations.Several disciplines are relevant toresearch that is needed, including informationtheory, management studies, psychology, sociology, urban and regionalplanning and geogTaphy. (MG) FILMED FROM BEST AVAILABLE COPY U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO- DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIG- INATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPIN- IONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDU- CATION POSITION OR POLICY. NEW DIRECTIONS INvascataatramaisRESEARCH by Alex Reid Cccumnications Studies Group Joint Unit for Planning Research (University College London and London School ofEconomics) June 1971 A Report Preparedfor the SLOAN COMMISSION ONCABLE COMMUNICATIONS views of the author The opinionsexpressed herein are the necessarily the opinions ofthe members and do not reflect of the of the Sloan Commission onCable Communications or Alfred P. SloanFoundation. 2 Abstract The prcblem area is defined asthat ol two-way. person-person Alternative criteria for the futuredevelopment telecommunication. and of the perim-persontelecommunication system are considered pc,licy must be based on rejected. It is suggested that future need, telecom.. a thoroughunderstanding of telecommunications effectiveness, and unications technology, telecommunications telecommunications impact.Methods of tackling each of these problem areas are discussed. described. In Part 2 a number of areasof relevant resear01 are These include the fields ofinformation thaory, applied vychology, experimental social psychology,management studies, sociology, The intention is to urban & regional planning,and geography. demonstrate the general neglectof person-persontelecommunications, while describing some of the fewdirectly relevant items of research. suggested. In Part 3 some worthwhilelines of future research are technological It is argued that a shiftshould occur away from telecommunications research towardsstudies of the human aspects such.research should of.telecommunications. It is also argued that communication problems of the whole corm- be concernees with the unity, rather than simply withthe needs of business firms. 3 PART I: CRITFRIA FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONSPRCGRESS The problem area Telecommunication may be classified firstlyinto one-way (e.g. broadcast) and two-way (e.g. telephone)communication. It may also be classified into person-person, person-machine, ormachine-machine communication. This paper is concerned only with two-way, person- person, telecommunication. Moreover it is concerned with such systems not as items of electronic hardware, but aschannels of human comm- unication. By what criteria must the developing system oftelecommunications be judged, if it is to play its full partin facilitating human capable communication?And are we, in the present state of research, of applying such criteria? The technological fallacy Technological feasibility is a necessary, butnot a sufficient criterion for innovation.The fact that a particular telecommunications system, such as the video-telephone, istechnologically feasible is no justification for its development (1). It is extremely dangenius to argue that such developments form somekind of 'logical' and even inevitable progression. To take an example from the field of ,trans- ;ortation, the fact that civil aircraft have steadilyincreased in airspeed does not prove that this trend can beusefully extrapolated must be ad infinitum. At each stage of innovation the probable costs weighed against the probable benefits, alternative coursesof action being compared on this basis.And of course the great weakness of technology as a strategic criterion is that there always arealtern- ative courses of action, each of then technologicallyfeasible. In the case of telecommunications, although thevideo-telephone is technologically feasible, so also is therapid transmission of paperwork by facsimile (2). Technological feasibility in itself is no guide to the priority whichshould be attached to each alternative. Imitation of the irrelevant /nstead of regarding telecommunication as driven on by atech- nological dynamic, it is possible to regard it as progressingtowards the increasingly accurate simulation of face-to-facecontact. A difficulty of such an approach is that accuracyexists along many 4 would involve an dimensions (3). Wholly accuriqe telecommunications dimensions, and with image that was full: size,full colour, in three How important are each ofthene kinds of perfectly reproduced speech. There 1:; no simple accuracy, and what is thetrade-off between them? site black and answer to the questionof whether, for example, a full (4). Some of these white image is preferableto a small coloured one others, and some aspects of realism may bemuch more important than to replace wood may not be importantat all. In specifying a plastic it would be necessary first todecide in a particular application Slavish imitation what features of wood wereimportant in the context. reproduction of of the original might leadto unnecessary and costly irrelevant features such asgrain and bark. It must also be bornein mind that an increase in accuracy, necessarily particularly if it occurs along asingle dimension, will not lead to an increase in realism,and may even be counter-productive. remarkable ability Experiments in perception showthat the brain has a it (5), both to sift out the salientfeatures of the signals'reaching fragmentary and incom- and to construct out ofthese features, however It has been said that the senses plete, a coherent picture of theworld. rather they provide do not give us a pictureof the world directly; about what lies lefore us (6).Attempts at evidence for check$mg hypotheses Thus the listener to a too much realism may frustratethis process. actors .4lich, radio play may be able toform in his mind an image of the product2on while innacurate, is far morerealistic than any theatrical proscenium, scenery and greasepaint.A with its artificialities of which invites us by its imitationof depth to stereoscopic photograph, impression treat it as a real view, createsby its lack of movement an two-dimensional photo- of unrealistic stillnesswhich is absent from a reproductiz.0 of face-to-face graph (7). Simply to pursue the accurate counter-prodUctive as well as unnecessary. contact may therefore be The inferior substitutefallacY face-to-face If telecommunications istreated as a simulation of In fact tele- contact it it by definition asecond best alternative. face- communicp'..lons systems haveconsiderable potential advantages over systems to-face contact, advantageswhich will not be exploited if such The full are treated asinferior substitutes for the real thing. regarded potential of plastics wasunreatised until they ceased to be treated instead as man-made substitutesfor natural materials, and were 4 5 The as materials in their ownright, with their own unique qualities. telecommunications,namely that, as in the most obvious disadvantage of communication case of the telephone,it excludes the visual channel of We seek privacy in a may in itself constitute apositive advantage. nuMber of ways, In for examplethe clothes we wear. The businessman in his office, or the lecturer on aplatform, will often feel more comfortable if he can take up adefensive position behind a piece of contact, the furniture (84. Because, compared with face-to-face telephone provides a reduced channelof communication, it represents the same kind of privacyshield. And because, unlike the face-to-face visit, the telephone does not invoke thecustomary associationu of host and guest, it is free of theobligations and commitment inherent in face-to-face communication (9). But the outstanding feNture oftelecommunication is that it com- bines in one medium the important advantawsof mail and face-to-face distance, thus communication. Like mail, it is largely indiHerent to providing an enormous geoaraphical range ofpotential contact (10). But activities, such as n15cussion andnegotiation, which require the rapid exchange of small packets