The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
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Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook
<b>Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society have consolidated their three year knowledge inquiry into the field of youth, technology and change in a four book collective “Digital AlterNatives with a cause?”. This collaboratively produced collective, edited by Nishant Shah and Fieke Jansen, asks critical and pertinent questions about theory and practice around 'digital revolutions' in a post MENA (Middle East - North Africa) world. It works with multiple vocabularies and frameworks and produces dialogues and conversations between digital natives, academic and research scholars, practitioners, development agencies and corporate structures to examine the nature and practice of digital natives in emerging contexts from the Global South. </b>
<p></p>
<p><strong>I</strong><strong>ntroduction</strong></p>
<p>In the 21<sup>st</sup>
Century, we have witnessed the simultaneous growth of internet and digital
technologies on the one hand, and political protests and mobilisation on the
other. Processes of interpersonal relationships, social communication, economic
expansion, political protocols and governmental mediation are undergoing a
significant transition, across in the world, in developed and emerging
Information and Knowledge societies.</p>
<p>The young
are often seen as forerunners of these changes because of the pervasive and
persistent presence of digital and online technologies in their lives. The “
Digital Natives with a Cause?” is a research inquiry that uncovers the ways in
which young people in emerging ICT contexts make strategic use of technologies
to bring about change in their immediate environments. Ranging from personal
stories of transformation to efforts at collective change, it aims to identify
knowledge gaps that existing scholarship, practice and popular discourse around
an increasing usage, adoption and integration of digital technologies in
processes of social and political change.</p>
<p><strong>Methodology</strong></p>
<p>In 2010-11,
three workshops in Taiwan, South Africa and Chile, brought together around 80
people who identified themselves as Digital Natives from Asia, Africa and Latin
America, to explore certain key questions that could provide new insight into
Digital Natives research, policy and practice. The workshops were accompanied
by a ‘Thinkathon’ – a multi-stakeholder summit that initiated conversations
between Digital Natives, academic researchers, scholars, practitioners,
educators, policy makers and corporate representatives to share learnings on
new questions: Is one born digital or does one become a Digital Native? How do
we understand our relationship with the idea of a Digital Native? How do
Digital Natives redefine ‘change’ and how do they see themselves implementing
it? What is the role that technologies play in defining civic action and social
movements? What are the relationships
that these technology based identities and practices have with existing social
movements and political legacies? How do we build new frameworks of sustainable
citizen action outside of institutionalisation?</p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p><strong>Rationale</strong></p>
<p>One of the
knowledge gaps that this book tries to address is the lack of digital natives’
voices in the discourse around them. In the occasions that they are a part of
the discourse, they are generally represented by other actors who define the
frameworks and decide the issues which are important. Hence, more often than
not, most books around digital natives concentrate on similar sounding areas
and topics, which might not always resonate with the concerns that digital
natives and other stake-holders might be engaged with in their material and
discursive practice. The methodology of the workshops was designed keeping this
in mind. Instead of asking the digital natives to give their opinion or recount
a story about what we felt was important, we began by listening to their
articulations about what was at stake for them as e-agents of change. As a
result, the usual topics like piracy, privacy, cyber-bullying, sexting etc.
which automatically map digital natives discourse, are conspicuously absent
from this book. Their absence is not deliberate, but more symptomatic of how
these themes that we presumed as important were not of immediate concerns to
most of the participants in the workshop who are contributing to the book<strong>.</strong></p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p><strong>Structure</strong></p>
<p>The
conversations, research inquiries, reflections, discussions, interviews, and
art practices are consolidated in this four part book which deviates from the
mainstream imagination of the young people involved in processes of change. The
alternative positions, defined by geo-politics, gender, sexuality, class,
education, language, etc. find articulations from people who have been engaged
in the practice and discourse of technology mediated change. Each part
concentrates on one particular theme that helps bring coherence to a wide
spectrum of style and content.</p>
<p><strong>Book 1: To Be: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook1/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong></p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p>The first
part, <em>To Be</em>, looks at the questions
of digital native identities. Are digital natives the same everywhere? What
does it mean to call a certain population ‘Digital Natives”? Can we also look
at people who are on the fringes – Digital Outcasts, for example? Is it
possible to imagine technology-change relationships not only through questions
of access and usage but also through personal investments and transformations?
The contributions help chart the history, explain the contemporary and give ideas
about what the future of technology mediated identities is going to be.</p>
<strong>Book 2: To Think: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook2/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong><strong>
</strong>
<p>In the
second section, <em>To Think,</em> the
contributors engage with new frameworks of understanding the processes,
logistics, politics and mechanics of digital natives and causes. Giving fresh
perspectives which draw from digital aesthetics, digital natives’ everyday
practices, and their own research into the design and mechanics of technology
mediated change, the contributors help us re-think the concepts, processes and
structures that we have taken for granted. They also nuance the ways in which
new frameworks to think about youth, technology and change can be evolved and
how they provide new ways of sustaining digital natives and their causes.</p>
<p><strong>Book 3: To Act: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook3/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong></p>
<p><em>To Act</em> is the third part that concentrates on stories
from the ground. While it is important to conceptually engage with digital
natives, it is also, necessary to connect it with the real life practices that
are reshaping the world. Case-studies, reflections and experiences of people
engaged in processes of change, provide a rich empirical data set which is
further analysed to look at what it means to be a digital native in emerging
information and technology contexts.</p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p><strong>Book 4: To Connect : Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook4/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong></p>
<p>The last
section, <em>To Connect</em>, recognises the
fact that digital natives do not operate in vacuum. It might be valuable to
maintain the distinction between digital natives and immigrants, but this
distinction does not mean that there are no relationships between them as
actors of change. The section focuses on the digital native ecosystem to look
at the complex assemblage of relationships that support and are amplified by
these new processes of technologised change.</p>
<p>We see this
book as entering into a dialogue with the growing discourse and practice in the
field of youth, technology and change. The ambition is to look at the digital
(alter)natives as located in the Global South and the potentials for social
change and political participation that is embedded in their interactions
through and with digital and internet technologies. We hope that the book
furthers the idea of a context-based digital native identity and practice,
which challenges the otherwise universalist understanding that seems to be the
popular operative right now. We see this as the beginning of a knowledge
inquiry, rather than an end, and hope that the contributions in the book will
incite new discussions, invoke cross-sectorial and disciplinary debates, and
consolidate knowledges about digital (alter)natives and how they work in the
present to change our futures<strong>.</strong></p>
<p><strong><a class="external-link" href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/MyAccount_Login.aspx">Click here</a> to order your copy. We invite readers to contribute reviews of an essay they found particularly interesting. Contact us: nishant@cis-india.org and fjansen@hivos.nl if you want more information, resources, or dialogues</strong></p>
<p>Nishant
Shah</p>
<p>Fieke
Jansen</p>
<p><strong>For media coverage and book reviews,</strong> <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/media-coverage" class="external-link">read here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook</a>
</p>
No publishernishantSocial mediaDigital ActivismRAW PublicationsCampaignDigital NativesAgencyBlank Noise ProjectFeaturedCyberculturesFacebookPublicationsBeyond the DigitalDigital subjectivitiesBooksResearchers at Work2015-04-10T09:22:29ZBlog EntryThe Book of Jobs
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/book-of-jobs
<b>The man who made the computer personal, who changed the face of the digital media industry, who was inspired by Zen philosophy to create an eight-billion-dollar empire, Steve Jobs, died last month. Just a few weeks before his death, in the midst of his painful illness, he told Walter Isaacson, the man chosen to write his authorised biography, “I really want to believe that something survives”. And Isaacson wrote him a fairy tale which will make sure that Jobs will be remembered beyond the gizmos and gimmicks.</b>
<p>The biography is an anecdote-filled tale, well told, even though familiar for having been told quite often. It gives you a glimpse of Jobs, who began his life as an adopted child who had discovered early in life that “he was smarter” than his parents. For those who think of Jobs as an icon of our times, the book is filled with delicious tidbits of a life that has been kept fiercely private: his relationships (the story of a 23-year-old woman who he got pregnant and abandoned), his friendships (including how he parted ways with his first business partner Steve Woznaik), his inspirations (how did the name Apple come about, and what exactly is a MacIntosh?), his confrontations (especially the rivalry with Bill Gates), and his roller-coaster ride with Apple (founder-president-poster-boy, who was sent into exile and welcomed back as reigning monarch). Some of the stories are a part of popular lore, some of them will surprise you, some will enthrall you, and yet others, harsh and unflinching, will give you a dekko into what being Steve Jobs meant. Especially to Steve Jobs.</p>
<p>“Abandoned. Chosen. Special”. For Isaacson, these three concepts shape and define the life of Steve Jobs, and it might be a good idea to break this review under these three heads, only in the reverse order.</p>
<p>Special: Isaacson, in his introduction, talks about how, following his biographies on Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, he did not immediately see Jobs too as a figure at the intersection of technology and creativity, someone who changed the world. As he admits, it was only when Jobs revealed his fatal illness that Isaacson decided to join the throngs of people who have admired and accepted Jobs as “special”. But while many believe that Jobs changed the world by making the world of the digital seductive, accessible and friendly, Isaacson himself remains unconvinced. It is this lack of conviction that perhaps produces a jarring note in what would otherwise have been a fitting eulogy to a man who remained a bundle of paradoxes, who saw the world in neat binaries of “gods and shitheads”.</p>
<p>Isaacson does a fantastic job of charting the histories that produced Jobs – the confluence of technology, creativity, hippie lifestyles, fruitarian diets and Zen philosophy that marked his formative decades. He captures the different temporalities, geographies, people and places marked with Jobs’ presence. And yet, when it comes to Jobs himself, there is a wariness, a reluctance to be sucked into his famous “reality distortion field”. Just when an interesting anecdote grabs your attention, Isaacson holds you down and states how special Jobs was. So even when he recounts the famous Xerox PARC raid that Jobs conducted, stealing the GUI (Graphical User Interface) technologies, Isaacson has to come to his rescue and point out that Jobs was a visionary. It tells us as much about history writing — the fact that it is written by winners — as much about Isaacson’s own discomfort with his subject.</p>
<p>Chosen: Steve Jobs believed throughout his life, even as he transformed from an LSD-consuming, acid-dropping hacker into one of the most notorious businessmen and advertisers in the world, that he was chosen to do something special. He saw himself as a rebel pitched against the big establishment (largely IBM) and till the end of his days, continued to believe in the idea that he was here to change the world — and hey, if messianic activities were accompanied with a multi-billion dollar industry, that’s just god working in mysterious ways, right?</p>
<p>Isaacson suffers from Jobs’ “chosen” complex differently. He was singled out by Jobs to write this story. He saw himself as “suitably positioned” to tell the tale. And yet, because he brings to the table the keen reflexivity of a historian, he is uncomfortable with this chosen position. As a result, what you get is an extraordinarily rich set of resources which variously endorse, question, challenge and provide alternative viewpoints to the one expressed by Jobs. With more than 100 sources of interview, an incredibly rich survey of the literature about Apple and Jobs, and long hours spent in conversation with Jobs, Isaacson builds for us a book that might be loved or hated but can never be ignored. He goes into the controversies, digs out the dirt, ferrets out little-known encounters, fights and accusations that have hounded Jobs’ personal and professional life, and never hesitates to call a spade a spade, even if he sometimes finds the need to put a little glitter on it.</p>
<p>Abandoned: Isaacson begins the book in a linear narrative, which, when describing Jobs’ early days, is easy because it takes the form of a pastiche, where different beginnings of people like Steve Woznaik, Bill Atkinson, Nolan Bushnell, Deborah Coleman, Mike Markkula, etc. intersect with Jobs’ life. However, in the second half of the book, especially when we see Jobs’ return to Apple and take over the reins, the book starts feeling abandoned. Isaascon seems overwhelmed by the material, where he has to take care not only of his multi-star ensemble but all the different less visible people — employees, shareholders, partners, enemies — and their reactions to and interactions with Steve Jobs. It was as if, with Next and Pixar on the verge of collapse and Jobs nearly bankrupt, Isaacson abandons his subject. He tries to gather the fairy dust that surrounds Jobs’ ascendance, but the narrative remains lacklustre. The rich anecdotes — Jobs stealing the idea of a tablet from a Microsoft employee — and wrenching interviews with Jobs’ final battles with illness remain, but somewhere the narrative momentum seems to have floundered, and unlike Jobs’ fortunes, never pick up.</p>
<p>All in all, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs remains faithful to everything that one can expect of a biography of the true computing rock-star who shaped the collective futures of people. It is rigorous, honest, poignant and romantic. There will be many debates about how much Jobs’ reality distortion field affected Isaacson’s own rendering of his life. But those debates are futile. Because, despite the names, dates, figures, the agonising over-accurate perspectives and the attempt to write a history, the book , like Steve Jobs himself, is best read as a fairy tale — a mixture of the real, the imagined, the plausible, the probable and the possible.</p>
<p>This article by Nishant Shah was published in the Indian Express on 12 November 2011. The original can be read <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-book-of-jobs/874689/0">here</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/book-of-jobs'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/book-of-jobs</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaBooks2011-11-14T03:27:19ZNews ItemIndic Wikisource Community Consultation 2018 report at Asomiya Pratidin ePaper- Highest Circulated Assamese Daily
http://editors.cis-india.org/indic-wikisource-community-consultation-2018-report-at-asomiya-pratidin-epaper-highest-circulated-assamese-daily
<b>Indic Wikisource Community Consultation 2018 report at Asomiya Pratidin ePaper- Highest Circulated Assamese Daily</b>
<p><em>Volunteers from various Indic Wikisource projects took part in a discussion organized by Centre for Internet and society: access to knowledge (CIS:A2K) in Kolkata recently. Dr. Gitartha Bordoloi participated in this consultation on behalf of the Assamese Wikisource which included other Indic languages like Bengali, Odia, Marathi, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada, Gujarati, Punjabi, Telugu and Sanskrit. It is worth mentioning here that Wikisource is another important project like Wikipedia, Wiktionary etc operated by Wikimedia Foundation. Anyone can contribute to this wikisource project which stores copyright-free books, plays, lyrics, speeches, translated works etc. Such works are first scanned and digitalized and then converted to unicode so that everything becomes searchable. Assamese Wikisource (<a href="http://as.wikisource.org/" target="_blank">as.wikisource.org</a>), started in 2013, so far includes various literary works of Guru Sankardeva and Madhavdev, Jyotiprasad Agarwala, Lakshminath Bezbaroa, Padmanath Gogain Baruah, Chandraprasad Agarwala, Amulya Barua, Dandinath Kalita etc. Measures to popularize Wikisource among masses, increasing numbers of readers and contributors, correct techniques to digitalize a book etc were discussed at the event in Kolkata.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Translated from Assamese by Dr. Gitartha Bordoloi </em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/indic-wikisource-community-consultation-2018-report-at-asomiya-pratidin-epaper-highest-circulated-assamese-daily'>http://editors.cis-india.org/indic-wikisource-community-consultation-2018-report-at-asomiya-pratidin-epaper-highest-circulated-assamese-daily</a>
</p>
No publisherjayantaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeIndic WikisourceBooksDigitisationWikisourceIndic ComputingWorkshopIndic Scripts2018-12-10T15:08:56ZNews Iteme-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities (Russian Version)
http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/e-accessibility-kit-in-russian
<b>The e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities is based upon the online ITU-G3ict e-Accessibility Policy Toolkit for Persons with Disabilities (www.e-accessibilitytoolkit.org) which was released in February 2010. This is the Russian translation of the same.</b>
<p>The <a class="external-link" href="http://g3ict.org/resource_center/e-Accessibility%20Policy%20Handbook">Toolkit</a> and its companion handbook have contributions from more than 60 experts around the world on ICT accessibility and is a most valuable addition to policy makers and regulators, advocacy and research organisations and persons with disabilities on the implementation of the ICT dispositions of the CRPD.</p>
<p>The handbook is a joint publication of ITU, G3ict and the Centre for Internet and Society, in cooperation with The Hans Foundation. The book is compiled and edited by Nirmita Narasimhan. Preface by Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union. Introduction by Dr. Sami Al-Basheer, Director, ITU-D. Foreword by Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict.</p>
<p>UNIC Moscow (United Nations Information Centre - Moscow) has translated the English version of the kit to Russian. For more information on the translation initiative by UNIC Moscow,<a class="external-link" href="http://www.unic.ru/news_inf/viewer.php?uid=164"> click here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p>Download the Russian version <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/e-accessibility-russian-handbook.pdf" class="internal-link" title="e-Accessibility Policy Handbook (Russian Version)">here</a> (PDF, 1045 kb)</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/e-accessibility-kit-in-russian'>http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/e-accessibility-kit-in-russian</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFeaturedBooksAccessibilityPublications2012-04-26T10:04:08ZBlog EntryDigital Natives with a Cause?
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnrep
<b>Digital Natives With A Cause? - a product of the Hivos-CIS collaboration charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology with a specific attention for developing countries to create a framework that consolidates existing paradigms and informs further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures.</b>
<p></p>
<p><img class="image-left" src="../dnr/image_preview" alt="Digital Natives Report" /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/" class="external-link">The Centre for Internet and Society</a>, Bangalore and <a class="external-link" href="http://http://www.hivos.net/">Hivos</a> have assessed
the state of knowledge on the potential impact of youth for social
transformation and political engagement in the South. This report ‘<em>Digital Natives with a Cause?’</em>
charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology and informs
further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures.</p>
<p>
The report displays that digital natives have a potential impact as
agents of change. It concludes that multidisciplinary theoretical
approaches venturing beyond the cause-and-effect model and providing
the necessary vocabulary and sensitivity are crucial to understanding
Digital Natives. The lament that youths are apolitical is a result of
insufficient attention to activities that do not conform to existing
notions of political and civil society formation. Digital Natives are
sensitive and thoughtful. It is time to listen to them and their ideas,
and to focus on their development as responsible and active citizens
rather than on their digital exploits or technologised interests.</p>
<p>The report specifically focuses on youth as e-agents of change within emerging information societies to explore questions of technology mediated identities, embedded conditions of social transformation and political participation, as well as potentials for sustained livelihood and education. It identifies the knowledge gaps and networks and further areas of intervention in the field of Digital Natives.</p>
<p>As a first step in working towards enabling Digital Natives for
social transformation and political engagement, Hivos and CIS will
organize a Multistakeholder Conference Fall 2010.</p>
<p>A summary of the report, as well as the detailed narrative are now available for discussion, debate, suggestions and ideas.</p>
<p class="Inleiding"> </p>
<p class="Inleiding">Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report Download Pdf document <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/dnrep1" class="internal-link" title="Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report">Here</a></p>
<p class="Inleiding">Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report Summary Download Pdf document<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/dnsum" class="internal-link" title="Digital Natives with a Cause? - Summary of Report"> Here</a></p>
<p class="Inleiding"> </p>
<p class="Inleiding">The report is also available at <a class="external-link" href="http://http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-on-Digital-Natives">http://http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-on-Digital-Natives</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnrep'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnrep</a>
</p>
No publishernishantRAW PublicationsDigital NativesWeb PoliticsFeaturedBooksDigital subjectivitiesResearchers at Work2015-05-15T11:31:14ZBlog EntryThe Idea of the Book
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/idea-of-the-book
<b>Its future lies in a trans-media format that is ever evolving, writes Nishant Shah in an article which was published in the Indian Express on April 8, 2012.</b>
<p>If you are a true bibliophile, you have long transcended making mortal judgements about books, based on insignificant factors such as plot, narrative, or writing style. A true bibliophile is in love with the form of the book — the joy that comes from the rustle of a turned page, the euphoria of holding a book in your arms, the satisfaction that rises from watching a tottering stack of books. For hardcore bibliomaniacs, the love is at a sub-molecular level, so to speak, finding their happiness and content in shapes of fonts, thickness of paper, methods of binding, imprints and meta-data that tells its own story. For all these true lovers of books, their affection goes beyond the content of the book. They love the book as an artefact, as an object of desire. It is as if there was a “bookness” to the book that they deeply appreciate.<br /><br />It is these people, along with many others, who mourn the death of the book in the age of digital mass production. With the advent of the e-book and the ubiquitous presence of reading devices, many have announced the death of the book. The ‘dead-tree book’, as it is often derisively described in many circles, is a thing of the past. As we live in worlds of increasing interface, the surfaces we read on, the way we read, and the forms that we read have undergone a dramatic reconfiguration. Swype-and-touch has replaced turn-and-fold and the book as we know it, is growing extinct.<br /><br />Professor Bruno Latour — one of the first theorists and critics of digital technologies, large-scale networks, and new methods of knowledge production — from Sciences Po in Paris, during his recent visit to Bangalore, suggested that instead of accepting the imminent death of the book and mourning its demise, it might be more fruitful to look at its future. The digital, he says, does not question the idea of the book, but merely the form. This, for me, is a fascinating idea. We often recognise the book as a form — something that is written, something that is bound, or something that is found in libraries. If you were to define a book, you would talk about the different kinds, shapes, colours and sizes of books but you won’t necessarily be able to explain it. This is because a book is only a material manifestation of a much larger idea and this is what we need to focus on.<br /><br />The book has seen many transitions in its form from the pre-print, hand-written manuscripts by trained scribes to the print-on-demand paperbacks which can be assembled easily. Technologies have not threatened but actually helped it change, evolve and keep up with the times. When we think of the digital book and the possibilities it offers, these are much more exciting than the rather Luddite lament about how the book is dead.<br /><br />In the digital medium, the future of multimedia narratives is convergence. An ability to tell stories, record knowledge, share information and make connections through a variety of media forms and styles changes the future of the book. Imagine a book that begins with a text, continues through music, blends into user-generated pictures and ends with a video. Imagine this book being written, not only in different media but also by different people, simultaneously, resulting in a layered palimpsest rather than a static page. Imagine each page and every word on the page not as a fixed thing but one of a series of alternatives. Imagine a book that is written as it is read, and no longer excludes print-challenged or differently-abled people from contributing to the writing, reading and sharing process.<br /><br />A trans-media format would stay true to the democratic and inclusive vision of a book and correct the limitations of print. Such a book would also free knowledge and information from businesses — let’s not forget that the publishing and education system is a business — and allow a new audience to participate in knowledge production. This is not a mere fantasy. We already have new models such as mash-ups which give us a new logic to sort and store information. Imagine Facebook as a collaborative platform where different information can come together to supplement the traditional book. Wikipedia is a space of knowledge production, which might simulate the older encyclopaedia form, but it is written by unpaid contributors, collaboratively, even as the Encyclopaedia Britannica announces its last ever print publication.<br /><br />The form of the book is going to change as it has over the last 500 years. However, the idea of the book — a receptacle that contains and records collective wisdom, information, ideas, knowledge, experiences and imagination of humankind – is here to stay. The digital book has to be understood not merely as a digitisation of an older book, but has to be imagined as a smorgasbord of possibilities which will revolutionise the form of the book and bring it closer to its intended vision. It is time indeed to announce, ‘The Book is Dead! Long Live the Book!’ </p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-idea-of-the-book/933920/0">Read the original from the Indian Express</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/idea-of-the-book'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/idea-of-the-book</a>
</p>
No publishernishantBooksInternet Governance2012-04-10T09:53:27ZBlog Entry