In his post "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable," Clay Shirky argues that newspapers are in the midst of a technological revolution -- one that rivals that of the invention of the printing press; and that it's unreasonable to expect anyone to be able to map out the path forward for newspapers right now. The phoenix can't rise from the ashes while the fires are still burning.
Shirky stresses that we don't know where the newspaper industry is headed other than at lightning speed away from the past. What we do know is that journalists need to carry forward top-notch investigative skills and a willingness to engage with readers as never before.
While writers in all media have always carried on a conversation with their readers (if only in their heads), that dialogue between reader and writer has become more intense since the explosion in online media.
The reader-writer dialogue, at its best, can result in a shared commitment to getting the story right and to identifying the stories that need to be told. This results in increased media access to anyone with an Internet connection: a massive shift that has been made possible by the birth of online media. (See William Dutton, Through The Network of Networks: The Fifth Estate for an inspiring discussion about the ways this democratization of the media is allowing ordinary citizens to hold politicians and others in power accountable.)
So what about the evolution of book publishing? E-Books should also be giving birth to such exciting possibilities, but, for the most part, they are stuck in the world of Web 1.0: a place where text talks at rather than to the reader.
When books become truly interactive (assuming publishers and authors are willing to take the leap: to commit to the long-term relationship that interactivity demands), books will come to life in a way that only sci-fi authors could have imagined until now.
Debates will rage on and off the page about the most pressing issues of our time; literature will demand to be discussed; statistics will lose their ability to lie; and convenient mistruths passed off as history will cry out to be rewritten.
Passionate info-enthusiasts will log on to the library electric, ready to be informed and entertained; awestruck and enraged; but above all engaged. And as the ideas flow between author and reader, reader and author, each info-wave will leave its own unique mark on the page -- at least until the next reader comes along.
Shirky stresses that we don't know where the newspaper industry is headed other than at lightning speed away from the past. What we do know is that journalists need to carry forward top-notch investigative skills and a willingness to engage with readers as never before.
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While writers in all media have always carried on a conversation with their readers (if only in their heads), that dialogue between reader and writer has become more intense since the explosion in online media.
The reader-writer dialogue, at its best, can result in a shared commitment to getting the story right and to identifying the stories that need to be told. This results in increased media access to anyone with an Internet connection: a massive shift that has been made possible by the birth of online media. (See William Dutton, Through The Network of Networks: The Fifth Estate for an inspiring discussion about the ways this democratization of the media is allowing ordinary citizens to hold politicians and others in power accountable.)
So what about the evolution of book publishing? E-Books should also be giving birth to such exciting possibilities, but, for the most part, they are stuck in the world of Web 1.0: a place where text talks at rather than to the reader.
When books become truly interactive (assuming publishers and authors are willing to take the leap: to commit to the long-term relationship that interactivity demands), books will come to life in a way that only sci-fi authors could have imagined until now.
Debates will rage on and off the page about the most pressing issues of our time; literature will demand to be discussed; statistics will lose their ability to lie; and convenient mistruths passed off as history will cry out to be rewritten.
Passionate info-enthusiasts will log on to the library electric, ready to be informed and entertained; awestruck and enraged; but above all engaged. And as the ideas flow between author and reader, reader and author, each info-wave will leave its own unique mark on the page -- at least until the next reader comes along.
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