A literary Juxtaposition for the 21st Century
I was listening to NPR on the way to work, which is a normal occurrence. Talk of the Nation presented Generation Net as the concept, specifically geared towards tomorrow's election, but also generally stating how information and media at large are presented to this generation born between 1977 and 1997. Their brains are formed differently, the guest said, and members of this demographic are known to have three blog windows open while listening to music and have their TV on in the background. News hungry elements of this group can have scores of RSS feeds that they peruse on a daily basis, in many cases 'triangulating' news and information to piece together as much truth as they can about the stories of today.
Lunch was spent listening to NPR as well, with Marketplace talking about business books in the ever changing economy. Publishers are pushing their writers and production staff to make their business-based works as relevant as possible during every shift and shudder that the economy presents. Various books can't move, of course; real-estate books after that bubble burst, e-commerce how-tos after the initial Dot-Com bubble popped, and so on. Others are changing titles, chapters, or even the entire scope of the book to fit what everyone's talking about today, whenever 'today' might be.
Many people, with varying degrees of interest, qualification, and sophistication, have said that books are dying. I have generally disagreed until today's juxtaposition of NPR program elements. While we won't find literary classics or specialized reference tomes completely digitized in our lifetimes, we may find ourselves connecting more with blogs than the written word in the next ten years, at least with regards to the way we view the live, vital, immediate world.
I say ten years because Internet writing is still in it's infancy. Yes, it's nearly ubiquitous, and the content ranges from flamewars and inane verbal slapstick to dull narcissism to the rare intelligent discourse, but we're still at the cave painting stage. Blogging is still struggling to gain legitimacy in every facet it exists: commercially for both writer and publisher, information accuracy, readability, presentation, and reputation. As people struggle to make their messages heard, the means of communication may be changing too quickly for this quest for legitimacy to ever truly be taken seriously by the next generation of media consumers.
Will blogging be a mature enough form of communication to take the reins when the book-mill finally dies? Will there be a gap between these stages? Do the rancid fruits of self-help books and millionaire manuals actually need to be replaced? One can only hope that something truly wonderful will sprout from the paper leavings of the past thirty years. The means of communication are certainly changing; with luck, the message may change along with it.
Lunch was spent listening to NPR as well, with Marketplace talking about business books in the ever changing economy. Publishers are pushing their writers and production staff to make their business-based works as relevant as possible during every shift and shudder that the economy presents. Various books can't move, of course; real-estate books after that bubble burst, e-commerce how-tos after the initial Dot-Com bubble popped, and so on. Others are changing titles, chapters, or even the entire scope of the book to fit what everyone's talking about today, whenever 'today' might be.
Many people, with varying degrees of interest, qualification, and sophistication, have said that books are dying. I have generally disagreed until today's juxtaposition of NPR program elements. While we won't find literary classics or specialized reference tomes completely digitized in our lifetimes, we may find ourselves connecting more with blogs than the written word in the next ten years, at least with regards to the way we view the live, vital, immediate world.
I say ten years because Internet writing is still in it's infancy. Yes, it's nearly ubiquitous, and the content ranges from flamewars and inane verbal slapstick to dull narcissism to the rare intelligent discourse, but we're still at the cave painting stage. Blogging is still struggling to gain legitimacy in every facet it exists: commercially for both writer and publisher, information accuracy, readability, presentation, and reputation. As people struggle to make their messages heard, the means of communication may be changing too quickly for this quest for legitimacy to ever truly be taken seriously by the next generation of media consumers.
Will blogging be a mature enough form of communication to take the reins when the book-mill finally dies? Will there be a gap between these stages? Do the rancid fruits of self-help books and millionaire manuals actually need to be replaced? One can only hope that something truly wonderful will sprout from the paper leavings of the past thirty years. The means of communication are certainly changing; with luck, the message may change along with it.