Digital publishing is an advancement in today’s society. Although I prefer the comfort and feel of a printed book and being able to physically flip the pages (I think it’s because staring at a screen for long periods of time causes my eyes to hurt), I can understand and appreciate the progression that digital publishing has added to the industry.
Specifically, I think digital publishing has made a powerful impact on the way we search and receive information. I also believe it could have an even greater impact on society, especially in education. As we viewed in the TED talk last class, the technology we possess could be very beneficial for learning because we would have more access to information in a digital textbook than a print version. Access to more information is right at one’s fingertips. There won’t be a need to break out a digital device because the information is there – or simply just a click away. As John Warren writes in his journal The Progression of Digital Publishing: Innovation and the E-volution of E-books, “a recent ‘Kindle in Every Backpack’ policy paper recommends public funding for student e-book devices, but even without public funding, the use of digital textbooks and other content is likely to rise” (Warren). I remember that starting in middle school, iPads slowly became integral to my classwork because we had so much more information disposable to us than the textbooks would allow. Once I reached high school, the amount of times we used iPads/laptops were almost equivalent to the amount of time we would spend looking at a printed book.
Concepts like digital textbooks are multimodal. This idea of multimodality is important to publishing in general. Multimodal is significant in digital and print publishing because “all kinds of texts are multimodal: newspapers, science reports, advertisements…” (Arola, 12). Social media platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and others are digital sources that combine different elements. I’m borderline addicted to snapchat and I love the many features that I’m able to use – pictures, video, sound, text – to get across the message that I want. Multimodal relates to print publishing as well because an academic essay or a science lab report are multimodal because it is possible for it to combine a visual mode with the linguistic mode. A chart, picture, graph, etc. can all be included in modes of print.
As mentioned previously, digital publishing has improved and simplified the way that we learn, perceive and interpret information. This is used through multimodality and the several different modes – linguistic, visual, aural, spatial, and gestural. These were the types of modes that were incorporated into my learning throughout middle and high school – and is increasingly being used today.
Word Count: 453
Works Cited:
Arola, Kristin L., et al. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014.
Warren, J. (2010). The Progression of Digital Publishing: Innovaion and the E-volution of E-books. The International Journal of the Book.