The E-Book Revolution - Assignment Example

The use of technology is quickly becoming a staple in modern affairs. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the widespread use of the Internet. First devised by the military in the 70's as network of computers interlinked to prevent central control by a single agency it has now become ubiquitous and continues to change the way in which people conduct every aspect of their lives. Foerstel 1998 p.50). People now spend more time thatn ever on the internet. The change has become so widespread that there are many questioning the future of traditional forms of media. Print media in the form of books and periodicals is the form most commonly predicted to decline from the widespread implementation of technology. This paper will explore the arguments for and against the rapid decline of the widespread consumption of print books in the face of the new changes in technology and will attempt to negotiate a path to some clearer understanding of the issue. The argument for retention of print media as a form is currently made by individuals who for lack of a better term could be described as tradtionalists. There are many compelling reasons for maintaining print media the, the least of which is tradition. Print media has been with us ever since Gutenberg invented the changeable print, an invention which in its own regard was a remarkable leap in technology over the tedium of hand written scrolls that had been the form for centuries. This change allowed standardization and and reproducibility on a scale that until that time had not been imagined. Printed books have been the current repository of information for all kinds of information. Professor Tom Wilson makes a compelling argument for the survival of the book as a form despite the changes in technology. He makes four sound arguments for the the survival of the book in its present printed form: Printed books are portable, random access, multimedia objects, conveniently accessible, and their energy demands are minimal.(Wilson, 1997 p.1) Interestingly he uses technical sounding terminology to describe an old form of media perhaps intentionally to underscore his point. It is important to take him on his word and decipher his terms. What he clearly means by portable is that books are by their very nature complete and can be transported in any manner, the only limitation being their size. By implication he suggests that this is not as easy with unwieldy computers. He then suggests that books are random access in the sense that they can be read back to front, opened and read at any time, and handled with ease. By multimedia Professor Wilson is simply saying that images can be rendered with the print. The convenience and the limited energy demands are, more or less, self explanatory suggesting that the books can be carried around in any setting and only require the individual to read the fixed text in a lighted setting to achieve the desired aim. All these arguments are made with the sense that technology is yet to achieve these standards, and perhaps because the very nature of technology implies a higher degree of complication, that complication is naturally to be associated with a structural weakness compared to the simple form of the book. On the surface these arguements appear to be eminently defensible but they do not account for the future potential efficiency of the technology and more importantly how that technology will change popular perceptions and expectations of media . The relationship between media and perception was first made by Marshal Mcluhan, a Canadian Intellectual who did the seminal work on the relationship between the media and public perception. Mcluhan died in 1980 but his ideas are considered so timely that in many ways he is considered a seer among modern technology advocates. Wired Magazine includes him on their magazine masthead.(Antecol, 1997 p.1) Essentially he saw technology interacting with human populations, changing their perceptions and the way in which approached the world. At his time he saw radio as the first great changing medium that allowed widespread communication. Film then followed, and and at the time of the height of his professional acclaim TV was just starting to make inroads as a media form. Mcluhan correctly foresaw the changes that television would bring. He coined the now famous “medium is the message”to describe how the media was not passively observed but something which was interacted with and changed the individual.(Antecol, 1997 p.1) Mcluhan never lived to see the degree to which the world wide Web has now become such a prominent feature in our lives but he did argue that new technology would further remove the barriers of communication and remarkably coined the phrase “Global Village”. The ideas of this next wave of media is being seen in the advent of E-books which are a natural extension of the Web. Electronic Books or E-books as they are popularly know are still an emerging idea but it is important to consider the coming changes in this media form and why it will certainly to continue to challenge the current traditional form of books for all of the reasons that Wilson used to support the advantages of print books, as well as other reasons for which Mcluhan laid down the prologue. E-books are developing into a form that incorporates all of the advantages of traditional books along with features that mark the new media of the web. The portability that Wilson suggest distinguishes the print book from technology is being reduced to a fallacy by the improvements that are being made in the design of e-books. As Palmer argues, in technology stability is not a feature of the technological world but rather change is the norm. (Palmer, 2001, p. 49) The memory capacity and the overall utilitarianism of technology is improving at a very high rate because the market competition is always being pushed in that direction. It will not be long before E-books can be produced that are as light as versatile as books. E-books are random access much like books but also they have the added advantage of being able to search parts of the text instantaneously, of book marking areas and of following links. This latter point is a highly significant marker of future trends. E-books are multimedia in a way that way that computer technology has allowed and it is this development which has most marked the paradigm change from the static media of print books. This paradigm shift is precisely what Mcluhan foresaw as the future direction of next new media. The whole idea of hypertext which allows connection to a huge data base has changed the way in which we take in information as Bolter suggests. (Bolter, 2000, p. 4) There is in a positive sense, a democratization of the process of taking in the information. With hypertext the information that an author presents is presented in the context of a whole data base of information that allows every manner of perspective. In many ways the application of semiotics, to day to day information processing becomes the norm with this way of taking in information. Quite apart from the semiotics of hypertext the multimedia potential of E-books is truly multimedia unlike the nominal designation assigned to print books. With both the hypertext language of links and the expansion of bandwidth, audio and video links can be seamlessly connected to the language of the text opening up vistas of information for the reader. The convenience of use and limited input of energy ascribed to the traditional print media can be challenged by the future potential of E-books. The decrease in size, weight and increase in resolution with the concurrent decrease in expense of E-books is a matter of inevitability given the high pace of change in the computer hardware and software industry. In this regard the convenience of print media becomes in error when the memory capacity of an E-book allows at this point dozens of books to be stored, something that would simply not be feasible with a print media book. An interesting argument to pursue as far as the energy efficiency of a print media book is the cost of producing the book in terms of paper. Many businesses have greatly reduced their print costs by switching much of their operation to web base electronic media. In light of this resource cost the minimal energy cost argument does some of its merit. Professor Wilson makes many good arguments given the current state of affairs. At this point the production of books in predominantly print media form is still the more efficient method but the trends will change. Traditionalists make good arguments for the survival of print books but they do not consider the inevitable factor of change that occurs in the short generational time of technology change. But more important than this is the whole sale change that is occurring in the perceptions of media. The internet and the hypertext format that it supports with cross reference to a huge data base is fast becoming a behavioural expectation. It was what Marshal Mchluhan predicted would happen. He foresaw the following changes: McLuhan argued that those changes would lead to implosion, not explosion. The world, he said, would fall in on itself. The globe would become joined through the blood system of electric wires that would shrink the planet into a single community with an all-inclusive nowness. And a smaller world obviates time - its relevance no longer important to a worldwide society where nothing or no one ever stops. Time and space become timelessness and spacelessness. The result is a Global Village based on a single consciousness in the preliterate oral tradition (Antecol, 1997. p.1) With respect to professor Wilson it is inevitable that the web will lead to the decline of the print media but it will not completely abolish it. Film and Television did not abolish radio and the same is true here. Print books will remain but they will not occupy their same high position in public consciousness because the expectations will have been raised by the new technology and the behavior in turn. This will be a point of no return but it will fascinating and exciting to head into this future. References Antecol, M. (1997). Understanding McLuhan: Television and the Creation of the Global Village. ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, 54(4), 454+. Retrieved May 14, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001522688 Bolter, J. D. (1998). 1 Hypertext and the Question of Visual Literacy. In Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformations in a Post-Typographic World, Reinking, D., McKenna, M. C., Labbo, L. D., & Kieffer, R. D. (Eds.) (pp. 3-11). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Retrieved May 14, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=27721839 Bolter, J. D. (2000). Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Retrieved May 14, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=106054062 Foerstel, H. N. (1998). Banned in the Media A Reference Guide to Censorship in the Press, Motion Pictures, Broadcasting, and the Internet. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Retrieved May 14, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=57825580 Freeman, M. (2000, October). Midmorning in the E-Book Age. Reading Today, 18, 40. Retrieved May 14, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5002369833 Grant, J. M. (2004). Are Electronic Books Effective in Teaching Young Children Reading and Comprehension?. International Journal of Instructional Media, 31(3), 303+. Retrieved May 14, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5011706263 Ohler, J. (2001, January). Taming the Technological Beast: The Case of the E-Book. The Futurist, 35, 16. Retrieved May 14, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000069087 Palmer, P. (2001, April). The E-Book Revolution. Black Enterprise, 31, 49. Retrieved May 14, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000964673 Reinking, D., McKenna, M. C., Labbo, L. D., & Kieffer, R. D. (Eds.). (1998). Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformations in a Post-Typographic World. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Retrieved May 14, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=27721832 Williams, P. E. (2003). Will a Digital Textbook Replace Me?. T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education), 30(10), 25+. Retrieved May 14, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001965142 Wilson, Tom( 1997) Electronic Publishing and the future of the book Information Research, Vol. 3 No. 2, September 1997 http://informationr.net/ir/3-2/paper39.html Read More