Mastering Inner Space : Telecommunications Technology and Geography in the 20th Century

The following paper presents an Inmted Plenary Address at the 29th International Geographical Congress, 16 August 2000. Ronald F. Abler, Prof essor Emeritus of Geography at Penn State University, has been Executive Director of the Association of American Geographers since 1989. He was elected as Executive Secretary of the IGU (Seoul IG Congress, 2000). Pr. Abler is one of the founding fathers of telecommunications geography. He worked as a telephone equipment installer and as a postal clerk before beginning graduate work at the University of Minnesota, where he completed his doctoral dissertation on The Geography of Intercommunications Systems : Postal and Telephone Systems in the United States, in 1968. He has subsequently taught and written extensively on how different societies have used intercommunications media at different times and places. He has written in 1991 : “Research on geographical aspects of telecommunications... is scare. Despite the fundamentally geographical natures of telecommunications and the industries that provide such services... the topic remains underdeveloped in geography. Nor have large numbers of other social scientists expressed great interest in the topic. Given their importance in both advanced and developing economies, there exists a serious lack of detailed research on telecommunications in general and on geographical aspects of telecommunications industries in particular. The absence of research is matched by a corresponding lack of instruction that might interest more students in telecommunications topics” (Netcom).Abler Ronald F. Mastering Inner Space : Telecommunications Technology and Geography in the 20th Century. In: NETCOM : Réseaux, communication et territoires / Networks and Communication Studies, vol. 15 n°1-2, september 2001. Geocyberspace: building territories on the geographical space of the 21th century (I) pp. 17-28