indicators

This page is being reconstructed. In the interim notes with selected communications revolution statistics are available -

• messages - voice traffic, data traffic, telegraph traffic and postal traffic
• uptake - time to adopt particular media
• devices - number of handsets, fax machines, mobile phones, personal computers and other devices
• facilities - number of broadcasting stations, cinemas and other facilities
• audiences - size of audiences for radio, television, film and other media
• content - production of books, newspapers, films and other content
• selected internet statistics, drawn from the Metrics guide and other pages on this site

     data sources

Global sources of particular value for communications history are

International Telecommunications Union (ITU)

United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

Universal Postal Union (UPU)

Local sources include

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA), replacing the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) and Australian Communications Authority (ACA)

For other nations see in particular -

US Census Bureau

Statistics Canada (StatCan)

Pointers to print and online sources regarding the internet are found in the Metrics & Statistics guide and associated profiles.

     benchmarking and derivation

Non-specialist researchers face particular challenges in placing adoption of the internet in historical context, because much benchmarking information is problematical or merely is not readily available.

In Australia, for example, it is difficult to identify uptake of particular devices prior to the 1960s, particularly on a per household basis, because information was not collected by government agencies and because there are uncertainties about figures in some commercial reports. Some researchers have accordingly relied on figures from the UK and US.

For benchmarking uptake of ICT see Sue Bowden & Avner Offer's 'Household Appliances and Time Use in the United States and Britain since the 1920s' in vol 47 No 4 of the Economic History Review (1994).

The US Census Bureau offers a handy distillation (PDF) of uptake of selected communications media from 1920 to 2001.

Questions about the measurement of consumption and audience sizes are explored in the Metrics & Statistics guide and the supplementary profile on Opinion Polling & Audience Measurement. 

Metrics for growth, particularly after 1870, are provided in Angus Maddison's Monitoring the World Economy, 1820-1992 (Washington: OECD 1995).

Data about contemporary and historic acquisition and use of ICT hardware and software can also be problematical. In discussing the number of personal computers in use at any one time we have noted that all figures are guesstimates. Figures about the number of PCs manufactured and sold are more convincing. They can be derived from survey data from retailers (eg monthly surveys in the US since 1984), shipment and other figures in financial disclosures by hardware and software manufacturers, media releases (often boasting of market share) and government statistics of varying detail and credibility (eg because they recycle flawed commercial survey data).

Figures for privatisations, telecommunication sector M&A and benchmark acquisitions in other sectors such as power, finance and aerospace are provided elsewhere on this site.

     populations

For points of reference about life expectancy see James Riley's Rising Life Expectancy: A Global History (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2001) and Life Under Pressure: Mortality & Living Standards in Europe and Asia, 1700-1900 (Cambridge: MIT Press 2004) by Tommy Bengtsson, Cameron Campbell & James Lee.

     prices and purchasing power

As a point of entry into literature on prices, incomes and purchasing power see John McCusker's How much is that in real money?: a historical price index for use as a deflator of money values in the economy of the United States (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society 2001) and Brian Mitchell's European historical statistics, 1750-1975 (London: Macmillan 1980)

For purchasing power see the 1997 essay Time Well Spent: The Declining Real Cost of Living in America, based on the notion that the

real cost of living isn't measured in dollars and cents but in the hours and minutes we must work to live.

EH.Net features indicators of the comparative value of US money - Purchasing Power of the Dollar, 1665 - Present and What is the Relative Value? Five Ways to Compare the Worth of a United States Dollar, 1789 - Present. It also includes indicators of the purchasing power of the UK pound 1264-2002, UK average earnings and prices 1264-2002 and the annual real and nominal GDP for the UK 1086-2000.

For a European converter prior to 1700 see the Marteau project's Early 18th-Century Currency Converter. The UC Davis Agricultural History Center site features data for several foodstuffs and non-foodstuffs for Istanbul 1469-1914, prices in Paris 1500-1870 and some prices and wages in Spain 1500-1800. There is no online value converter for Australia and New Zealand.

Indicators of prices in the fine arts and other collectibles are provided elsewhere on this site.



 

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