"Echt" Contact

Samenvatting

Interconnectedness of society, politics, and technology influenced the 
implementation of the newly invented technology of telephony in the 
Netherlands during the Belle Époque. This essay argues that both the technology 
and its symbolisms are best understood as continuations of longstanding 
negotiations. As such, the symbolisms of later media, including the internet, 
also borrowed from this medium. Technically, the invention of telephony 
served as an innovation within telegraphy. This invention was treated as 
such by Dutch policymakers for the two decades following its introduction 
in the country. However, the two media technologies vastly differed in social 
implications. Many Dutch citizens were enthusiastic about the wondrous 
new opportunities that this new medium offered. Others, however, were left 
disillusioned by the rapid and unpredictable changes that it imposed on the 
world they were living in.