The Digital Book: A Medial Revolution without a New Medium
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Volker Titel
Introduction
Can a book that doesn't come from comprehensibly materialized textual means still be considered a book? What happens when, in the form of an electronic publication on the World Wide Web, a typical book-type volume is designed to be networked and includes multi-media? As the physical object itself disappears, one of the conditions required for the existence of book science faces extinction. Is the Internet – or rather the World Wide Web contained in it – a medium that opposes the book? In the context of discussions regarding media competition, this idea is becoming widespread. Infinitely more exciting, though, is that we are experiencing an information technology revolution and, in fact, a medial revolution without a new medium.
© 2003 by K.G. Saur
