The Medium and the Message

The Medium and the Message


By Sam Vaknin


Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"





A debate is raging in e-publishing circles: should content be


encrypted and protected (the erstwhile Barnes and Noble or Digital


goods model) - or should it be distributed freely and thus serve as


a form of viral marketing (Seth Godin's "ideavirus")? Publishers


fear that freely distributed and cost-free "cracked" e-books will


cannibalize print books to oblivion.





The more paranoid point at the music industry. It failed to co-opt


the emerging peer-to-peer platforms (Napster) and to offer a viable


digital assets management system with an equitable sharing of


royalties. The results? A protracted legal battle and piracy run


amok. "Publishers" - goes this creed - "are positioned to


incorporate encryption and protection measures at the very inception


of the digital publishing industry. They ought to learn the lesson."





But this view ignores a vital difference between sound and text. In


music, what matter are the song or the musical piece. The medium (or


carrier, or packing) is marginal and interchangeable. A CD, an audio


cassette, or an MP3 player are all fine, as far as the consumer is


concerned. The listener bases his or her purchasing decisions on


sound quality and the faithfulness of reproduction of the listening


experience (for instance, in a concert hall). This is a very narrow,


rational, measurable and quantifiable criterion.





Not so with text.





Content is only one element of many of equal footing underlying the


decision to purchase a specific text-"carrier" (medium). Various


media encapsulating IDENTICAL text will still fare differently.


Hence the failure of CD-ROMs and e-learning. People tend to consume


content in other formats or media, even if it is fully available to


them or even owned by them in one specific medium. People prefer to


pay to listen to live lectures rather than read freely available


online transcripts. Libraries buy print journals even when they have


subscribed to the full text online versions of the very same


publications. And consumers overwhelmingly prefer to purchase books


in print rather than their e-versions.





This is partly a question of the slow demise of old habits. E-books


have yet to develop the user-friendliness, platform-independence,


portability, brows ability and many other attributes of this


ingenious medium, the Gutenberg tome. But it also has to do with


marketing psychology. Where text (or text equivalents, such as


speech) is concerned, the medium is at least as important as the


message. And this will hold true even when e-books catch up with


their print brethren technologically.





There is no doubting that finally e-books will surpass print books


as a medium and offer numerous options: hyperlinks within the e- book and without it - to web content, reference works, etc.,


embedded instant shopping and ordering links, divergent, user- interactive, decision driven plotlines, interaction with other e- books (using Bluetooth or another wireless standard), collaborative


authoring, gaming and community activities, automatically or


periodically updated content, ,multimedia capabilities, database,


Favourites and History Maintenance (records of reading habits,


shopping habits, interaction with other readers, plot related


decisions and much more), automatic and embedded audio conversion


and translation capabilities, full wireless piconetworking and


scatternetworking capabilities and more.





The same textual content will be available in the future in various


media. Ostensibly, consumers should gravitate to the feature-rich


and much cheaper e-book. But they won't - because the medium is as


important as the text message. It is not enough to own the same


content, or to gain access to the same message. Ownership of the


right medium does count. Print books offer connectivity within an


historical context (tradition). E-books are cold and impersonal,


alienated and detached. The printed word offers permanence. Digital


text is ephemeral (as anyone whose writings perished in the recent


dot.com bloodbath or Deja takeover by Google can attest). Printed


volumes are a whole sensorium, a sensual experience - olfactory and


tactile and visual. E-books are one dimensional in comparison. These


are differences that cannot be overcome, not even with the advent of


digital "ink" on digital "paper". They will keep the print book


alive and publishers' revenues flowing.





People buy printed matter not merely because of its content. If this


were true e-books will have won the day. Print books are a packaged


experience, the substance of life. People buy the medium as often


and as much as they buy the message it encapsulates. It is


impossible to compete with this mistique. Safe in this knowledge,


publishers should let go and impose on e-books "encryption"


and "protection" levels as rigorous as they do on the their print


books. The latter are here to stay alongside the former. With the


proper pricing and a modicum of trust, e-books may even end up


promoting the old and trusted print versions.








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AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)





Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant


Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West


Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Central Europe Review,


PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International


(UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health


and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and


Suite101.





Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government


of Macedonia.





Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com