Page 134 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

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READING MATERIALS
New pathways for reading: eBooks, audiobooks, apps, transmedia stories... Overview of the current offering of new stories in digital format
The impact of technology on the publishing sector
Since the 1990s technology has been changing various aspects of the cultural industry (produc- tion of content, promotion, distribution...). First music, then film, and then journalism. Books were the last culture and leisure sector to go digital, but, like the rest, they have embraced the digital society.
The “digital future” of the world of books and reading has been the subject of many talks, lectures and discussions organised in recent years by various institutions and sector agents, who are concerned about the impact of techno- logical innovations on the creation, production
and distribution of publishing content. And the process has gone through several phases over the years in relation to these repercussions.
At the beginning there was such widespread conviction of the possibilities of digital publish- ing that it seemed that books and conventional formats would disappear for good. The estab- lishment of the Internet as the major global communication system, the versatility of digital media, the easy and fast access to content they offered and the lower prices they entailed were some of the reasons.
Many publishers thus invested heavily in exper- imenting with the new technologies to prevent being ousted from the future scene by more adventurous agents. This optimistic perception of the future of digital publishing was adopted by other sectors, which also carried out sub- stantial investments in this field in order to be
in a position to make the most of new business opportunities in the world of publishing and new technologies.
READING MATERIALS
Readers in the digital age