Print culture in the digital era : the publishing industry in the 21st century

This thesis provides an examination of the impact of new technologies on the book publishing industry and literary culture; analyzing the ways in which digital technologies like the eBook and eReader are changing reading practices and the conception of the book as a physical object and cultural artifact, as well as the way in which the internet, and Web 2.0 applications in particular, are being used to create new literary communities. I posit that the communications circuit described by Robert Darnton is disrupted and reconfigured by new technologies that facilitate novel forms of communication between authors, publishers, booksellers and readers, but that these changes are an extension of existing practices within literary culture. Further, in significant ways, these changes signal a recuperation of collaborative forms of production and reading practices that predate the print era, and herald an era of renewed collaboration and communication amongst literary communities.

Print culture in the digital era : the publishing industry in the 21st century

This thesis provides an examination of the impact of new technologies on the book publishing industry and literary culture; analyzing the ways in which digital technologies like the eBook and eReader are changing reading practices and the conception of the book as a physical object and cultural artifact, as well as the way in which the internet, and Web 2.0 applications in particular, are being used to create new literary communities. I posit that the communications circuit described by Robert Darnton is disrupted and reconfigured by new technologies that facilitate novel forms of communication between authors, publishers, booksellers and readers, but that these changes are an extension of existing practices within literary culture. Further, in significant ways, these changes signal a recuperation of collaborative forms of production and reading practices that predate the print era, and herald an era of renewed collaboration and communication amongst literary communities.

Impact of Electronic Information Resources on the Mindset of Researchers

The main purpose of the study in hand was to assess the impact of advent of electronic information resources on some core aspects related to the research activity across agricultural libraries of Northern India. Six aspects have been covered in this study. Seven sampled universities were surveyed personally by the investigator for collecting data about the questions under investigation. A questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. Filled out questionnaires from 1,200 respondents were collected and processed with the help of SPSS statistical package. The response of the users for each statement under investigation has been collected through a simple ‘Yes'/‘No' option. Chi squared test has been administered to work out the significance of association between the parameters under study and the user opinion thereof. The majority of respondents are of the opinion that due to advent of e-resources and in view of the ICT developments the ‘literature survey' (92.94%) and ‘problem identification' (51.81%) has become easy and fast. The ‘spirit to conduct more and more research' has increased among respondents (86.62%). Moreover, this has also enabled the users to ‘complete' (84.31%) and ‘publish' (89.97%) their research work in a lesser time than required in print era. A good percentage of respondents (46.26%) also agree that the ‘cross comparison of findings of one's study with those of other studies has become easy and fast' (46.26%) in electronic era.

Beginnings and Endings

Each temporal sequence (specifically, in language) has its own structure and dynamics, but the beginning and the ending may be said to be universally important or significant points within such a sequence. They constitute the boundaries, or frame, of the literary text, separating it—and the world it projects—from the world around us, thus playing an important role in determining its basic shape. Locating the textual point of beginning is often somewhat complex or problematic (typically more so than that of the ending), because, at least since the advent of the print era and the book format, the “main” text is accompanied—or surrounded—by other materials collectively known as paratexts (e.g., titles, epigraphs, various kinds of prefaces) that may be likened to a threshold through which the reader gradually passes from the “outside” to the “inside” of a text. Considered as a threshold, one of the beginning’s most important potential functions is to “draw us in,” or be seductive and help carry us over from the world we inhabit to the world the author has imagined. The beginning is also particularly important in creating a primacy effect, setting off our mind in a certain direction and thereby influencing our entire reception of the work. We may make a broad distinction between “orientational” and “abrupt” textual beginnings—the latter type confronting the reader with an ongoing action, without supplying preliminary information necessary for its understanding. Historically, such beginnings became widespread from the late 19th century, with the transition from realism to modernism. A phenomenon that is particularly intriguing in the context of narrative beginnings is that of the exposition, since by definition it always constitutes the beginning of the mimetic or actional sequence but is not necessarily located at the beginning of the textual sequence. Moreover, the point of transition between the exposition and the primary narrative action (or fictive present) may be considered as another kind of “beginning,” which plays an important role in how the narrative is perceived as a whole. Delimiting the ending as a textual unit involves a fundamental issue of a different kind than those relevant to beginnings: since the ending follows everything else in the text, it is difficult to consider it without considering through it, so to speak, the text as a whole. The understanding and appreciation of endings depend to a large extent on what has preceded them. But at the same time they tend to play an important role in retrospectively shaping it and often have a lasting impact on its evaluation. The critical study of the ending has paid a good deal of attention to closure, so much so that there is a widespread tendency to conflate the two concepts; it is important, however, to differentiate between them. Whereas ending refers to the text’s termination point, closure refers to the sense of an ending: that is, not to the textual termination point itself but rather to a certain effect, or perceptual quality, produced by the text. The common distinction between “closed” and “open” endings is quite crude in its basic form and should be regarded as a finely gradated and multidimensional continuum rather than a simple dichotomy. Broadly speaking, endings that tend toward the open end of the continuum are typical of modern literature (and heavily valorized by modern criticism), and like “abrupt” beginnings they testify to a desire not to accentuate the boundaries of the work of art.

Contemporary Misticism: Recovering Sensible Aesthetics in an Age of Digital Production

Materialist accounts of artistic development emphasize the ongoing revolution of media in the progress of history. Amongst the most popular accounts of modernity are Walter Benjamin’s essays on the relationship of photography to traditional art. His account of the loss of aura has been subject to countless reinterpretations since its publication. The present essay addresses the contemporary production of a number of architects and artists whose work provides an interesting challenge to the Benjaminian account of the secularization of artistic ritual. The artists Adam Fuss, Vera Lutter, Alison Rossiter, Sally Mann, and others have recently been exploring photographic methods that contradict the Benjaminian account of the history of photography. They continue to explore techniques that Benjamin placed in the auratic pre-paper-print era, such as Daguerreotypes and photograms, as well as employing other more material/chemically based effects. Such artistic choices are often considered nothing more than a nostalgic reverie trying to stem the tide of materialist history, a flawed search for a lost aura of presence. However, when these works are set against the backdrop of contemporary digitized production and of the Dusseldorf School as well as most other contemporary photographers, these “retro” works stand as a critical counterpoint to our present seamless digital imperium. The soft and hazy effects of these works, what I am calling their misticism, occludes the particularity of digital bits of information in a search to connect to the material and the sensual, something denied by information-saturated technologies. Even within a materialist approach to history, there is room to view these architectural and artistic effects as critically productive rather than merely retrograde. The present essay argues for the timely relevance of contemporary retro-photographic techniques in fostering both a critical attitude and as evidence of attempts to recover a sense of spiritual presence.

Impact of Electronic Information Resources on the Mindset of Researchers

The main purpose of the study in hand was to assess the impact of advent of electronic information resources on some core aspects related to the research activity across agricultural libraries of Northern India. Six aspects have been covered in this study. Seven sampled universities were surveyed personally by the investigator for collecting data about the questions under investigation. A questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. Filled out questionnaires from 1,200 respondents were collected and processed with the help of SPSS statistical package. The response of the users for each statement under investigation has been collected through a simple ‘Yes'/‘No' option. Chi squared test has been administered to work out the significance of association between the parameters under study and the user opinion thereof. The majority of respondents are of the opinion that due to advent of e-resources and in view of the ICT developments the ‘literature survey' (92.94%) and ‘problem identification' (51.81%) has become easy and fast. The ‘spirit to conduct more and more research' has increased among respondents (86.62%). Moreover, this has also enabled the users to ‘complete' (84.31%) and ‘publish' (89.97%) their research work in a lesser time than required in print era. A good percentage of respondents (46.26%) also agree that the ‘cross comparison of findings of one's study with those of other studies has become easy and fast' (46.26%) in electronic era.

PERLINDUNGAN HUKUM TERHADAP JURNALIS WARGA YANG BERBASIS TEKNOLOGI INFORMASI

Along with the development of technology with the invention of the internet, the speed information cannot be blocked. Black list that occurredin the print era no longer applied when the era of information technology. The problem is, when it appears journalists from citizens namely the ordinary citizens who write news or facts in blogs or personal website, then it is exposed to public whether there is any protection for the journalist. These are problems that were examined in the article titled Legal Protection Against Journalists Citizen-Based Information Technology. The results of this study can be concluded that now everyone can write and submit his writings to the audience with ease. Currently in Indonesia citizen journalism grown fairly well. This is evidenced by the number of blogs that exist in Indonesia and made by the people of Indonesia. The existence of the blog has signaled that citizen journalism is a phenomenon that is in demand and will continue to grow in the community. The nature of citizen journalism that allows all internet users can enter information that he had through the Internet, can cause a state of some kind of 'abuse of power' by the accessor. The absence of clear boundaries about what should and should not be put on the internet has made sites and blogs contain information that should not be. Therefore it needs to be a rule in the special form of legislation on the protection of citizen journalists. Keywords : Legal Protection, Citizen J

Innovation by Political Outsiders

This chapter explores communication innovations made by American social movements over time. These movements share political communication goals and outsider status, which helps to connect innovation decisions across movements and across time. The chapter primarily explores two long-lasting movements. First is the women’s suffrage movement, which lasted over seventy years of the print era from the mid-nineteenth century until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Next is the long-lasting fight against racial discrimination, which led to the modern civil rights movement starting in the print era, but coming of age along with television during the 1950s and 1960s. Both the women’s suffrage movement and civil rights movement utilized innovative tactics with similarly mild results until mainstream coverage improved. Finally, these historical movements are compared with movements emerging during the internet era, including the early Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the Resist movement.

Book Review: After the Book: Information Services for the 21st Century

Both inside and outside of the library, the use of print information objects declines while the use of electronic information objects escalates. This phenomenon and how libraries respond to it should be the chief concerns of librarians going forward, according to author George Stachokas. Stachokas argues that nearly everything about the practice of current librarianship is rooted in “the print era” and is therefore “intrinsically linked to the physical library” (35). Given that society “increasingly abandons print” (1), librarians face the daunting task of reshaping themselves and their profession; otherwise, they “risk the problem of seeming and becoming obsolete” (36). Stachokas warns, “Those who manage information in the so-called information age do not really have the luxury of clinging to the past” (39). He proposes that libraries move away from print resources altogether and become fully electronic.