Maybe the answer to this question seems obvious. We’re already seeing newspapers losing ad revenue and going out of business. Many of the survivors are consolidating, publishing shared content from outside sources rather than maintaining a large staff of local reporters. That means fewer investigative journalists, fewer exposés of local corruption, fewer long-form stories, and fewer articles that can’t be found in every other publication that also buys the same shared content from the Associated Press.
Both Michael Antman, in “Is print really dead,” and Christopher Guerin, in “Yes we can — so we do,” are concerned about how technology will affect not only journalism, but also music and, yes, even book publishing and literature. I understand their concerns, maybe even share some of them, but I also think there will be opportunities for writers and editors who are willing to embrace each emerging technology.
I don’t know what the media landscape will look like a decade from now. The possibility that one day, perhaps still many years away, something like the Kindle will take the place of printed books, might have some consequences for literature that lovers of the written word will dislike, as both Guerin and Antman plausibly argue. But other new technology, like print-on-demand books, could have consequences for books and literature that lovers of the written word will like a lot. Who knows how blogs might evolve and what entrepeneurial possibilities will develop? One thing’s for sure — the future hasn’t happened yet and is impossible to predict.
Tweet
Subscribe to RSS
While there are several signs pointing towards a digital transition in the fields you mentioned, there is something about the cheapening effect of digitization that I think will prolong the presence of traditional media for quite some time. The ease with which a piece of work can be duplicated or replicated in its digital form makes it less special to us.
Record albums, cassettes, CDs, and now books are all forms of self expression being “threatened” by digital media. Breaking them down into 1′s and 0′s homogenizes them and therefore works against the individuality that we have come to associate with artistic expression. With no tangible representations of these media left to define who we are, we turn to accessorizing our iPods, colorizing them, and wrapping them in pretty plastic cases in order to construct some semblance of individuality out of a product everyone else has.
The effect that these kind of changes will have on publishing and literature is not one that I can predict, but at the end of the day this is an issue about the package, not the product. There is a powerful difference between the form of the art and the art form, a subtle one that I think sometimes we overlook.
The links I pointed to suggest that packaging will and has influenced the product significantly. I like to think that you’re right about this, and quality will survive and flourish even as speed and convenience and digital transition flourish. I also like to think that the quality of the work and the advantages of technology are not mutually exclusive.
I’m pessimistic that the book as we know it will survive as anything but an artifact, but there was a time when, as a woodworker, I thought that all furnishings would be plastic laminant or some synethetic material. Real wood has depth, warmth, a certain allure that causes you to want to touch it that no synthetic material has. The digital form or the written word–that “package” you guys are talking about–will never have that form.
But–and here’s my concern–how can a person experience “specialness” if he is never exposed to it or if the market forces (at the production and the consumer ends) are just too powerful to make that specialness possible? If you’ve never eaten a fresh tomato and always have eaten the canned variety–or canned soup–how can you know the specialness of a fresh tomato or home-cooked soup? The way we’re going now, isn’t there going to be a time where children aren’t exposed to “real” books? So how can a book’s specialness be determined if all a person is exposed to is text on a screen? And what’s on the screen is market-driven by way of technology which affords convenience.
My students don’t see the sense, and neither do I, of buying a text book of readings only a portion of which they’ll have to read or want to read, so if the portion can be gotton online for free, why not? The last time I taught English comp with a literature base only about half my students bought the text book that I “suggested,” not “required.” The consumer wants to experience the “good parts” of something, whether the “good songs” on an album or the various scenes and endings of films on dvd. It seems to me that the way we experience literature, film, music is simply changing, and it’s showing up in the “package.”
While I certainly agree with both of you that the package affects the product, I think that too often they are treated as one and the same. For instance, the death of the CD does not equal the death of music. There is this idea presented in Christopher Guerin’s article that digitization, “in and of itself, carried the seeds of music’s destruction.” While it definitely played a role in determining music’s “downfall,” treating digitization as the sole suspect overlooks other changes that took place simultaneously: the rise of the Internet, on-demand TV, and the booming popularity of video games, all of which led to music’s more subdued role in the lives of today’s youth.
There are other questions. Has music deteriorated? From the point of view of people who don’t like current music, the answer is yes. I don’t know enough about what is currently popular in music to have an opinion, or to know if there has been a genuine drop in quality. A lot of it seems pretty bad — the pop stuff — but I thought the same thing 20 years ago, before iPods. And some of the current stuff seems to be pretty good. Though I don’t listen enough to be confident talking about it either way.
If the quality has dropped, is that the result of digitization and other technologies? Is it the result of the business models of the music companies? Is it a combination of both of these, the business models following (or failing to keep up with) the technology? There was plenty of crappy music being made in the 70s and 80s and 90s before everyone was downloading music for free. There was also excellent music being made back then. Is there not excellent music being made today? Again, I have no opinion on this. I am just asking.
Is it possible that some of this is what happens every generation, with older people disapproving of what the younger generation likes, and forgetting just how much bad stuff was popular during their own youth? Or is it more than that, and the (perhaps impending) collapse of the industry, caused in part by technology, is real and leaving us with a lack of good music? And does this translate to the future of books and literature and movies and all that? I’m asking a lot of questions here because I don’t know the answers.
If I can clarify, it was a friend I was quoting who wrote that “digitization in and of itself carried the seeds of music’s destruction.” He also went on to cite several additional circumstances responsible. Neither my friend nor I would contend that digitization is the sole factor. The seed has required soil and water. For example, there is record label execs’ greed (particularly in the way they priced and continue to price CD’s) and stupidity (both their denial about downloading and the generally held policy of not putting out albums by young artists more often than every two or three years, so that when the next album comes along the audience has moved on–look how well EMI did putting out Beatles albums ever 10 months or so). The general death of melody in favor of rhythm and lyrics has been a huge factor. (I challenge anyone, of any age, to hum from memory 5 songs currently on the charts, let alone songs that were on the charts a year ago.) Lyrics have been emphasized to a ridiculous extent, for which I blame reviewers, among others. Not when I was 15 and not now do I want to learn about life, love, or philosophy from the lips of a 22 year old rock star. My life has been entirely shaped by music. As a symphony orchestra manager for 20 years, and as a collector who has never, for my entire life, not owned at least 1 album on the Rolling Stone’s top 40 list (I’ve checked it every issue since the 60′s), I can only voice my own opinion that music today is a pale shadow of what it has been in the past.
I thought I would second Michael’s opinion that music today is a pale shadow of what it used to be. That probably explains why so many people much younger than me are still listening to the bands of my generation. As for the book, regarded primarily as reading storage system, it probably is going to be replaced by the ebook. After all, a good bit of the popularity of paperbacks resulted from the fact they were cheaper and lighter. But i think people are always going to want to have a library of their favorite books and the art of making books is likely to thrive. Just my two cents toward a most interesting discussion
Thanks for the comment, Frank. It’s Christopher you’re agreeing with, not Michael (he hasn’t weighed in here, though I think he would agree as well).
When it comes to the book, I prefer to whistle past the closed bookstore. I agree that self-publishing and instant publishing have promise, and I can’t help but believe that holding a nicely bound hardback and turning crisp pages will endure far, far longer than the LP did, even if it has to share the same readers with the Kindle.
Actually, it’s Michael, which is to say me, that you’re agreeing with as well!
It’s very difficult to make the point that music had deteriorated badly, which indeed it has, because someone usually responds with some chestnut along the lines of “well, every generation says the same thing.” But some arts are on the ascendancy and some are not, and music clearly is not — neither the popular nor the classical variety.
I don’t share Chris’ concern about the over-emphasis on lyrics (I like good lyrics) but agree strongly that the loss of interest in melody has been a disaster for music. So, too, has been the fragmentation of audiences, and the major labels’ loss of influence. No question, the labels have been greedy and stupid, but at least they enforced a certain level of professionalism. I have to laugh every time I come across some new band (I still follow new music assiduously, even though I’m usually disappointed) bragging about how they don’t need the big labels and can distribute their music themselves.
Then I click on their new video, and the music sounds exactly the same as everyone else’s music — either generic jam band, or Starbucks-style singer-songwriter, or generic R&B. Everyone uses the same instrumentation, everyone over-relies on melisma, rhythm is over-emphasized over melody, emotions are approached sidewise rather than head on, etc. And new classical music is mostly terrible too — which is why we keep on hearing the same old composers over and over again.
Digitization is part of the problem, both because of the lower quality of digital versus analog recording, and because file sharing and instant downloading have weakened the major labels (which, again, is both a good and a bad thing) but music’s problems are much bigger than just that.
Literature, for whatever reason, seems to be in relatively better shape, and I’m cautiously optimistic that the printed book will survive (even as I welcome innovations such as the Kindle for certain uses) but that’s another subject for another time.