“The Press Motivated Me”: Life Histories with the Media in Brazil

Brazil, with commercial broadcasting and a political press, moved from dictatorship to democracy during the transition after Franco in Spain, with its noncommercial system. This coincidence creates a natural experiment in how political and media systems relate to citizens' subjective experiences. Comparing limited life histories from Brazil to previous American and Spanish narratives suggests two relationships: between market-oriented broadcasting and a postmodern consumer stance, and between a politically committed press and an engaged citizen stance.     

Publishing in South Korea in 2016: “The Vegetarian” of Han Kang Vitalizes the Korean Book Market

The article refers to the current status of the book publishing industry in South Korea in 2016. Observations at Seoul International Book Fair and in Paju Book City are complemented with current data. A special focus lies on the consequences of the handling of rebates and the fixed book price and how the government and several organizations are trying to stabilize the book market.     

Critiquing Culture in the “Small House”: How Vic and Sade Brought the Mass Culture Critique to the Masses

The popular comedic serial Vic and Sade can be viewed in relation to the mass culture critique, a series of criticisms advanced by twentieth century public intellectuals for the benefit of other intellectuals against the alleged negative impacts of mass entertainment, particularly radio, and other aspects of mass culture. A close examination of Vic and Sade's depiction of mass entertainment, specifically film, periodicals, and popular fiction, demonstrates that the program advanced its own critique of mass culture, one coming from the perspective of the masses and directed toward a mass audience.     

Annual Report on the Digital Publishing Industry in China: 2007–2008

The annual report captures the rapid growth over the past 5 years with a focus on the past 2 year of the digital publishing industry in China. The growth is evaluated in relation to new revenues generated, the size of the market segments represented by e-journals, eBooks, digital newspapers, blogs, online music and games. The leading companies in each of these sectors are identified as there is still a reluctance of traditional publishes to move more aggressively into the new media publishing. Finally, a review of the challenges that the lack of copyright present to the industry as legal systems have not caught up with the rapid developments of the media or online information industries.     

Reading the Signs: What is Really Happening with Digital Publishing in China?

Based upon a recent review of the relevant literature in both English and Chinese, this paper assess the current state of and future prospects for digital publishing in China. It addresses developments both in the context of ongoing technological and organizational change and with regard to the wider social and cultural dimensions. Embodying a simulated SWOT exercise it considers the current and likely future state of digital publishing in China through the eyes of western publishers seeking to do business in that country. Digital publishing in China is still in its infancy, while perhaps remaining more opaque to western observers than was expected. Issues around ownership, industry structure, operating platforms, stakeholders, piracy and intellectual property remain critical. Perhaps more than anything, and certainly much more than in the West, the issue of culture, not only in terms of national values and perspectives but also in terms of how things are done, remains a potent influence on business relationships with foreigners. In the West this continues to feed perceptions of legal and commercial uncertainties, risks to intellectual capital and obstacles to the production and distribution of knowledge and ideas. Whatever the perceived downside to such phenomena however, China is still regarded as a major growth market for western publishers. It concludes that whereas there are many opportunities for both parties, and that both can learn from each other, the learning curve is likely to be much steeper on the western side, owing to the significance of the social and cultural dimension.     

Publishing technologies: what does the future hold?

Web technologies have given publishers and researchers alike opportunities to interact in new ways. These have had an impact on business models, the value of formal and informal communication, and the role of publishers in the networked community. This article looks at some recent examples which are likely to set precedents for the future of publishing technologies. In particular, it focuses on the evolution of Web searching, the growing importance of online communities, the potential of Web tools for self‐publishing, and the way in which publishers can control their content even post‐publication. It also suggests that the recent rash of e‐book readers is unlikely to be of importance to scholarly publishing.     

Project “listening post”: An experiment in education for broadcasting

For almost two decades, researchers have been following in the footsteps of Paul Lazarsfeld in asking members of the public comparative questions about the mass media. However, fewer studies have inquired as to opinions held toward a particular type of program or feature in one particular medium. Recent research indicates that, despite the growth of television, radio news has “held its own” as a valuable source of information to the American people.     

Is It a Small Publishing World After All?: Media Monopolization of the Children's Book Market, 1992-1995

This study considers how the trend toward media conglomeratization affected the little-studied industry that provided books to millions of children between 1992 and 1995. Two hypotheses are proposed that test different aspects of competitive market theory. The first predicts that the size of the publisher' s ultimate parent company will influence sales, and the second predicts that children's books that have ties with other media products will sell more copies than books that have no such ties. The second hypothesis is supported and the implications for the concentration of this segment of the publishing industry are discussed. In particular, this question is asked: In an environment of continuing media concentration, where are the measurable effects of that concentration in this market?     

The Development of Library and Information Profession in the Chinese Academy of Sciences

1　Introduction　　Overthepast45years(1950～1995),undertheleadershipoftheChineseAcademyofSciences(CAS),andinacommoneffortofthestaffmembers,thelibraryandinformationsystemofCAShasbecomeasys-temwithmulti-disciplines,multi-levelsandmulti-functions.Thesystemi…     

Two Sides of the Same Coin? Trade and University Press Publishing of Revised Dissertations, 2007–2016: Some Observations

In academia, humanists, social scientists, and those in the various sciences, write books that assume major cultural capital for promotion, tenure, and for dissemination of scholarship. For the beginning academic, doctoral education is the acculturative process by which nascent scholars achieve competence in their respective disciplines. The capstone research experience culminates in the doctoral dissertation in the humanities and social sciences, often, and with substantial revision, the first book in professorial life. This study attempts to frame the production, illustrative bibliographic characteristics, and major publishers of revised dissertations published by university and scholarly trade presses. This study is grounded in data provided by YPB’s Gobi database and further articulated by utilization of the Library of Congress Classification system, and further frames the degree of interdisciplinarity, pricing, geographical concentrations, and other aspects of these books and investigates the similarities and dissimilarities between university press and scholarly trade presses. Illustrative examples display trends and provides suggestions for future analysis and research.     

A Review of “Sequels: An Annotated Guide to Novels in Series”

This note discusses, with examples, correct ways of determining the average growth rates of phenomena that grow exponentially, such as typical library collections. Library expenditures also tend to grow exponentially; and because analysis of their growth rates is complicated by the effects of currency inflation, methods of compensating for inflation in the analysis are presented.     

Open Access Publishing in Business Research: The Authors’ Perspective

Open access (OA) publishing is now accepted as an integral part of the emerging trends within scholarly communication. Business librarians, like their subject specialist colleagues in other disciplines, are increasingly called upon to interpret scholarly communication trends to their faculty. This study surveys 1,293 business faculty from American schools of business accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Issues explored include business faculty publishing practices within the discipline and how these affect academic advancement, obtaining articles for their own research, electronic publishing, self-archiving, and their perceptions about OA publishing generally.     

Publishing in Open Access Education Journals: The Authors’ Perspectives

Open access publishing is now an accepted method of scholarly communication. However, the greatest traction for open access publishing thus far has been in the sciences. Penetration of open access publishing has been much slower among the social sciences. This study surveys 309 authors from recent issues of open access journals in education to determine why they choose to publish in open access journals and to gain insight into the ways publishing practices within the discipline itself impact the willingness of authors to engage in open access publishing.