Concept and Comparisons

This week we talked about the basic concept of Enhanced E-books, and the differences between regular E-Books and Enhanced ones, as well as the differences between a website and an App. The following tables are re-caps of what we discussed in class.

Orality to Enhanced Ebooks

Photo Cred 

Our discussions about enhanced ebooks provoked me to think about the impact of this technology on our culture. It reminded me of some research I conducted last year in one of my courses. I was looking at the change that occurred in Greek culture as a result of the shift from an oral culture to a written culture. Before people began to write, society revolved around an oral tradition of transmitting information. When you think of the Iliad and the Odyssey, these classic works came from an oral tradition of sharing stories by word of mouth. Nothing was written down. People interacted differently with the information. It required a great deal of memory and the structure of the information was shaped by the fact that people could not write things down. As a result, they formed patterns and created writing structures that helped people remember. A great shift occurred in ancient Greece when people developed the technology to write and became a preliterate society. Walter Ong has written a great deal about this in a great book, Orality and Literacy. He argues that with the change in the way we began to record and communicate, there was a shift in consciousness. Ong discusses the monumental changes  in society's thought processes, personality and social structures. 

After reading about the differences between print and enhanced ebooks, I can't help but make a connection to the shift from orality to literacy. I find myself wondering if we are undergoing another great shift in our society right now as we move from the static world of print to the interactivity of enhanced ebooks and other great media technologies. I am curious to explore how our own consciousness and thought processes are altered as we begin to primarily read texts that are interactive. The texts require a different reader. The reading experience seems more physical. We are required to move around in a text - to touch images, consume films, locate ourselves within the text with GPS, listen to music, select particular sections to read instead of experiencing the text in a linear way. The writing process has also transformed. Writers no longer focus on only the text but also must consider how that text interacts with other elements such as audio, images, video, ect. This requires the writer to develop skills and literacies beyond simply writing. Joseph Harris discusses how writers are  working in a "remix culture - an environment in which texts, images, and recording are constantly recycled and repurposed. Its a difference between learning how to do things with words and how to do things with texts." (Harris, A Teaching Subject, p. 172) The process of reading and writing is again shifting as a result of new technologies and enhanced ebooks are a part of this great transformation. I am excited by these changes and I believe, like Ong, they have a profound impact on our culture.
-Meagan Thornton- 

Weekly Journal 9-10-14

Hi all,

For my journal entry/blog post this week I decided to give a little more background to the "behind the scenes" and/or "background information" topic that I brought up in our discussion on Tuesday.

I felt that I didn't quite get to explain fully what I was talking about and I didn't have immediate examples, which of course, help understanding. When I brought this up, I was thinking that the "behind the scenes" information are two fold in purpose 1) this type of information helps bridge the novel, e-book, enhanced e-book divide and 2) these outside sources of information give us a glimpse to what an enhanced mass market novel/e-book would look like.

For example, the link below takes you to a website promoting musician Neil Dover, who wrote two albums in support of and based off of his then wife's bestselling series of novels (her name is Karen Marie Moning). http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=8140149

Dover wrote these songs based off of songs that appear in Moning's novels, and beyond that, he had access to information about characters outside of their storyline's within the novels, so buying and listening to the albums does enhance and enrich the reading experience and gives readers access to information that they otherwise wouldn't have. Just as an author releasing their "writing playlist" might give a reader new insights into characters or scenes in the novels.

Moning's website furthers this experience with games and galleries, allowing the reader to fight the same villains and to even put images to characters. http://www.sidhe-seersinc.com/

Another example of this type of background information can be found on author Sherilyn Kenyon's website and phone apps: http://www.sherrilynkenyon.com/gallery/photos/. The galleries and up to date information on the production of the movie and television series versions of the novels and e-books are all "behind the scenes" and I believe that they represent this move toward enhanced e-books.

While die hard fans are combining this information or enhancement on their own, it is a very minor step to take, I think, before we have an enhanced e-book that will allow you to listen to the song the character is listening to, or give you the option to display an image of a character that is being introduced to the narrative. With a fan base that is used to researching information out, an enhanced e-book that eliminates the need to do that research would, in my opinion, be very marketable, especially with the ability to "update" an enhanced e-book or application.

-Yvonne Clark

Ikea's "bookbook"

"Experience the power of the bookbook! " Ikea's new campaign mocks Apple and the trendy digital books in a funny way.