Mass communication is a historically developed and developing in time technically mediated process of creating, storing, distributing, disseminating, perceiving information and exchanging it between a social subject (communicator) and an object (communicant). The communication system book stage began with the Gutenberg machine (1440 – 1450). 1 Precisely from this moment books became the main source of the intellectual and spiritual fullness of society, bearing in themselves an uncountable mass of unique information, therefore they can not be replaced by any other source of information.
Books in Communication System
The industrial communication system is the highest point of the book culture development, but already at its peak, signs of its dilution are visible, for example, impersonal mass communication, opposition information and documentary activities, and the spread of the myth about the information crisis. The book informatics efficiency has begun to decrease; there is a situation where it is easier to open a new fact or create a new theory than to make sure that they have not yet been opened. Thus, there was a need for more sophisticated technical means to address the information crisis.
The book is currently acquiring an electronic form. The disappearance of the book is not predicted. It is necessary to preserve the book as an attribute of culture, the formation of figurative, abstract thinking.1 Irving Kristol, the godfather of neo-conservatism, said “If you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you have also to believe that no one was ever improved by a book. You have to believe, in other words, that all art is morally trivial, and that, consequently, all education is morally irrelevant.” The quote brightly reveals the idea that people are what they read.
A person is a reflection of the inner world of the individual, the quality of which is directly dependent on the acquired skills and knowledge. Quality books are the only intellectual source capable of progressive development of the human thought. Books’ ban from public libraries or their censor violates freedom of speech and press. A person has the right to independently choose literature, be it a printed or electronic publication.
The Choice Between a Printed Edition and an Electronic Book
It is not so simple to give the answer to the question whether electronic books will replace printed ones. There are many factors, such as demographic and lifestyle, and situational context that significantly influence the choice between these two positions. At present, about 86% of people prefer printed books for reading with a child and about 70% for sharing with friends. While electronic books are chosen for other cases, for instance about 85% use them because of quick access and about 77% for reading on the move.
It is evident, printed books and electronic books perform radically different functions in different reading situations. Future changes in this area will depend on the development of electronic books and the electronic reader itself. 2 The choice is also influenced by other variables: the number of books read, the income of a person, the frequency of occurrence and frequency of use for research, as well as ethnicity, age, and education. Nevertheless, even the growth of sales and readership of electronic books does not allow them to replace printed books entirely.
Electronic and printed books perform various functions to satisfy the reader’s needs, which change under the influence of different factors. Of course, recently electronic books have become widespread due to the convenience and quickness of access to the book of interest. Thus, electronic and printed books carrying the same information complement each other.
As a result, it can be noted that even after 50 or 100 years, printed books will remain on the shelves of the readers. Nothing can replace the feeling of leafing through the pages of the book of the beloved author. The electronic book will never be able to convey the inmost history contained in the pages of an old publication so carefully preserved to this day.
Bibliography
Crowley, David, and Paul Heyer. Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society. New York: Routledge, 2015
Zhang, Kudva.“Ebooks vs. Print Books: Readers’ Choices and Preferences Across Contexts.” Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology 50, no. 1 (2013).
Footnotes
1 – Crowley David and Paul Heyer, Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society. (New York: Routledge, 2015), 67.
2 – Zhang Kudva, “Ebooks vs. Print Books: Readers’ Choices and Preferences Across Contexts,” Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology 50, no. 1 (2013): 3.