E-readers and the death of the book: Or, new media and the myth of the disappearing medium
Abstract
The recent emergence of e-readers and electronic books (e-books) has brought the death of the book to the centre of current debates on new media. In this article, we analyse alternative narratives that surround the possibility of the disappearance of print books, dominated by fetishism, fears about the end of humanism and ideas of techno-fundamentalist progress. We argue that in order to comprehend such narratives, we need to inscribe them in the broader history of media. The emergence of new media, in fact, has often been accompanied by narratives about the possible disappearance of older media: the introduction of television, for instance, inspired claims about the forthcoming death of film and radio. As a recurrent narrative shaping the reception of media innovation, the myth of the disappearing medium helps us to make sense of the transformations that media change provokes in our everyday life.
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Biographies
Andrea Ballatore is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Spatial Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara (spatial.ucsb.edu). His interdisciplinary research focuses on the digital representations of place, crowdsourcing and the technological imaginary at the intersection between computer science, media studies and geography. In 2013, Andrea received a PhD in Geographic Information Science from University College Dublin. He has worked as a lecturer at the Department of Computer Science at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and as a software engineer in Italy and Ireland.
Simone Natale is a research associate at the Institute for Cultural Theory and History, Humboldt University Berlin. He is the author of The Spectacular Supernatural: Spiritualism and the Rise of the Media Entertainment Industry (forthcoming in 2016 with Pennsylvania State University Press) and of articles published in peer-reviewed journals such as Media, Culture & Society; Media History; the Canadian Journal of Communication; Early Popular Visual Culture; and History of Photography.
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Article first published online: May 18, 2015
Issue published: November 2016
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