America Calling Farmers
I find Fischer’s explanation of the decline of rural telephony plausible. That being said, I am still not sure I completely trust his “statistical analyses.” Fischer’s use of statistics felt almost as awkward and forced as Williams attempts at a prelmininary content analysis. Although I am not the kind of scholar who believes that truth can only lie within a p-value, I would have really liked an explanation as to the nature of Fischer’s statistical analyses. My guess is that he utilized some kind of regression analysis to predict what variables led to the demise of telephone use by farmers. If this is the case, I would challenge this social historian to report more numbers than just raw percentages. I am willing to contend, however, that this may actually make Fischer’s analysis more awkward. I think it is just the inner “quantoid” lurking within me that is curious as to what Fischer actually did to yield his results.
One other major contention I have with this portion of Fischer’s analysis is somewhat related to statistics. If Fischer could use statistical analyses to support his claims regarding the demise of rural telephony, he should also be able to statistically show what forces lead to rural America re-uptaking the telephone. This omission is irritating to me. Perhaps Fischer does address this later in the book, and I will find out what led farmers back to the telephone lines.