Perspectives of a Wanderer

Mar 26 2009

The Decline (and possible demise) of the Print Media

Published by peregrinus at 9:36 pm under Distributism, Ramblings

If you read the news these days, you see that a number of news papers and magazines are either going out of business or are going completely electronic. Part of this is due to their slanted viewpoints and the fact that the information is hours/days/weeks old by the time one reads the paper or magazine. However, there is more going on here and that is the decline, and possible demise, of the print media in favor of the electronic media.

And it is not only the news media that is being affected. It has started to creep into literature to. Whether it is Sony’s Reader, Amazon’s Kindle, or even audio books, many books are now available electronically. However, I do not see this as progress for a couple of reason.

First, this limits one’s sources of literature to those companies that can afford to, or are allowed to sell their products in the formats readable by these devices. This is dangerous since censorship could easily creep into the selection of what gets publishes based on viewpoint or that one dares to also publish with the competitor’s proprietary format. It also smacks of global capitalism since devices for reading literature will be controlled by a few companies due to the proprietary nature of their devices

Secondly, for me, I think it is easier to read books when it is on paper and not on a screen. It is easier to look up footnotes/endnotes or when something in a previous section is referenced. You can also highlight and make notes in the books which you cannot do with a electronic file.

Finally, and this applies specifically to audio books, I see this specific media as a threat to literacy. One no longer has to be able to read to be able to “read” certain books. However, why learn to read when you can “listen” to the books. Of course, this limits one’s selection of “reading” material since the majority of books are not and will never be on audio books. Even then, many audio books are “abridged” which means you are not getting the whole book. In some cases, like driving or as a reinforcement tool, audio books are a good thing but these are few and far between.

Whether it be newspapers, magazine, or books, there is a beginning of decline in the print media. Some are much further than others. Whether this, will this lead to the demise of the print media is another thing all together. I see books as the last to go and, hopefully, not for a long time.

Progress for progress sake is not progress at all.

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7 responses so far

7 Responses to “The Decline (and possible demise) of the Print Media”

# candeloraon 26 Mar 2009 at 11:40 pm

To accept change is to say the least [Hard]. We do not like to go through the growing pains that make things new again. For, in order to get there the old has to be taken away. But when the old has become corrupt than it inevitably falls which results in the need for the new that in time becomes [once agian] the old.
Do not be afraid of external change -it is the [internal] that matters…
# Dawie Coetzeeon 27 Mar 2009 at 8:40 am

You missed one, regarding the book-reader devices. The electronic book is indecipherable on its own. The ability to read is no longer simply a function of having learned to do so, one now also has to own the gadget. The gadget might be touted as (at least imminently) affordable, but do we really expect it to be durable? How much will we miss for want of a working reader, among all the defunct ones? How often shall we have to add to the collection?
# peregrinuson 27 Mar 2009 at 8:55 am

Dawie. I think I did touch on that, although not in detail, when I mentioned the proprietary nature of the devices.
# Jim Bryanton 31 Mar 2009 at 11:37 am

That got me thinking – it would be a great product to develop an “open source” book reader. The question would be is it the software or the hardware that would be licensed ?

peregrinus – what kind of software do you write applications in ?
# peregrinuson 31 Mar 2009 at 7:05 pm

The final code is C++, but I use RAD tools that come with the software (from JDE E1 from Oracle).

Even being a Techno-Geek (I even have the Liturgy of the Hours on my iPhone), I have no desire to have one of those devices.
# Jim Bryanton 01 Apr 2009 at 10:54 am

JDE – is that Java ?

I found this page that has a java applet that demonstrates Lonergan’s diagram of rates of flow from his “Essay on Circulation Analysis”. You can email and get the applet for further development.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/cag/bayanihan/lonergan/
# peregrinuson 01 Apr 2009 at 11:09 am

JDE is short for JD Edwards and E1 stands for Enterprise one. JDE E1 is the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system (Accounting, AP, AR….) we use where I work.

Java is actually a subset of C (or use to be I am not sure)