2.3 Continuity and (functional) change: Riepl’s Law

Much as the history of telecommunication and "western" world dominance are interconnected, the history of remote and telecommunication in a world-historical perspective turns out to be more than an exclusively "western" dominated accelerating history of communication implemented via telegraph, telephone, radio, fax, internet and e-mail – and it becomes clear that progress-teleological constructions might not be as adequate as they often seem to be. The all-embracing historical dimension of the history of communication can be clearly seen in the variety of historical forms which have co-existed and frequently complemented each other up to the present day.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the classical philologist and journalist Wolfgang Riepl (1864-1938) called attention to this fact (Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nachrichtenwesens bei den Römern, i. e. contributions to the history of ancient Roman communications, 1911). He explained that even the most ancient means, forms and methods of remote communication remain side by side with new forms, whereby they frequently, however, undergo a change in function. Riepl stated that "kein Instrument der Information und des Gedankenaustauschs, das einmal eingeführt wurde und sich bewährte, von anderen vollkommen ersetzt oder verdrängt wird." (Haas 1990, S. 109) i.e. that no instrument of information and no medium for the exchange of ideas will be completely re- or displaced by others once it has been introduced and has proved its worth.
This observation came to be known as "Riepl’s Law" of the complementarity of media. And even though its legal character turned out to be unfounded some time ago, the relationship between new and existing media is still discussed along pretty much the same lines (cf. e.g. the displacement or accumulation hypothesis). Nobody could deny that even very ancient forms of remote communication still exist today. One might, for example, think of the human postman who (still) comes to our houses on a more or less daily basis, and often enough rides a bike in fulfilling his "carrier" function within the system of modern remote communication. Similarly, klaxons and lighthouses persist – in spite of marine radio and GPS. And even in highly industrialised regions, we still find church bells or clarions and also flags (e.g. at half-mast) as means of remote communication – though they might often be reduced to a symbolic or ritual purpose.
Against today’s background of mobile phones and e-mail, animals and men as carriers of communication media are often taken for atavistic epiphenomena. But people forget too easily that both still play an important role in the field of information-transfer in many parts of the world. After all, it holds true that a total of 60% of today’s world population have never made a single phone call (alternative map). And what is more, there are certain regions of the world for which the idea that technological development always proceeds from electric landline to multifunctional mobile phones, as common as it may seem to us, simply does not apply. The area of southern Africa, for example, where landline phones were and still are rather rare, is one of today’s fastest developing markets for mobile telecommunication.
Furthermore, we can still find relay systems in quite impassable regions of the world. They are, for instance, operating in the modern Indian Himalaya region . Apart from that, there are a couple of areas like, for example, the French peninsula Cotentin in Normandy where people continue to use carrier pigeons as “postmen”. And even during World War I when so many new technologies came to be used for the very first time, pigeon mail played an important role at the front. The heliograph which even ancient sources tell us about, is yet another means of communication we can still find in the context of modern warfare. We can thus conclude that the world of remote communication is more than ever characterised by the "Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen", i.e. the synchrony of the asynchronous.

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