Do you remember if that figure includes cable news? But also I think that a lot of people listen to the broadcast news at 6:00 or 10:00, but then vet, or receive commentary, on what they’ve heard through their favorite websites or blogs. The broadcast news might be their primary source, but it is filtered through several “new media” secondary sources. This may still break the kind of information lock the big 3 networks had prior to the explosion of the internet.

Anyway, Larry, I may post an article about this sometime soon. My PUA piece is coming out in a few days. I’m thinking of ditching the “Internet Communication” piece; I figure that those who believe me already do, and I’m probably not going to change the minds of those who prefer to stay exclusively on the web.

If the corporate media is losing influence and even legitimacy, it will create more space for alternative media outlets and allow voices that have been marginalized and silenced by mainstream gatekeepers to be heard. This has obvious implications for Asian American writers and cultural producers.

In terms of news outlets, for instance, I think more people are tuning their back on the dominant media for news and looking elsewhere. Hopefully, this trend will occur across the spectrum from Hollywood to publishing to the music industry.

“I fear we’re entering a new political era, one of Big Governments, one where the masses are now effectively dumber than before (making them easier to control by said Big Government), not so much because they aren’t empowered with information, but because they don’t know how to distill and use all the information they have access to. And a lot of this state of affairs can be attributed to the downfall of books.”

We actually were addressing this issue a bit on the Thymos e-list.
In addition to Al Gore’s book that Jaehwan mentioned, the article below addresses this dumbing down phenomenon. It’s about the movement from a print-based to image-spaced US society and its broader political implications.

America the Illiterate
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21239.htm

Have you seen this New Yorker article?

Twilight of the Books

It talks a lot about a “secondary orality” in the video age, which I think is similar to what you’re saying about the solidness of books. I agree with just about everything you said above. The internet is just an entirely different beast. The government could come and shut the entire web down, and then where would we be? Bloggers would forget everything! But with books, we remember. With books, we think more deeply. With books, we truly explore deeper issues in life.

Have you read Al Gore’s Assault on Reason? I recommend this book to everyone. Gore talks about the political process and how the important issues of our day all come down to who can buy the most 30 second ads. It’s insane, but he’s totally right.

Thanks for the Authonomy link. Harper Collins? Hmm… Do they do literature?

I just saw this on Minority Militant’s site. Looks like everyone is hurting today, even the book industry.

http://www.authonomy.com/

Copied and pasted from Authonomy’s “About Us” page:

authonomyTM is a brand new community site for writers, readers and publishers, conceived and developed by book editors at HarperCollins. We want to flush out the brightest, freshest new literature around – we’re glad you stopped by.

If you’re a writer, authonomy is the place to show your face – and show off your work on the web. Whether you’re unpublished, self-published or just getting started, all you need is a few chapters to start building your profile online, and start connecting with the authonomy community.

And if you’re a reader, blogger publisher or agent, authonomy is for you too. The book world is kept alive by those who search out, digest and spread the word about the best new books – authonomy invites you to join our community, champion the best new writing and build a personal profile that really reflects your tastes, opinions and talent-spotting skills.

The publishing world is changing. One thing’s for sure: whether you’re a reader, writer, agent or publisher, this is an exciting time for books. In our corner of HarperCollins we’ve been given a chance to do something a little different.

Self-publication means more ideas and more variations of those ideas are being put in the stream of commerce. That also means more noise, static. What information that you’re reading can you rely on and what can you not? You think you should be able to pick them apart from one another, but these days, it’s getting harder and harder.

I don’t think books are going to go extinct, but it IS a VERY sad comment on our society that books are going the way of all things elitist. It’s become this factor that allows book-readers to feel better than non-book-readers. With that said, non-book-readers are missing out on a LOT. They’re diluting their brains with all this immaterial media, frying their visual senses with the boob tube and their critical thinking abilities (because I don’t know about you, but I have never ever done any “critical thinking” after watching Boston Legal or Lipstick Jungle, but I HAVE after reading a good book). … Or… is that last comment made by me just an offshoot of my elitism as a book-reader? I really don’t know.

We spent centuries trying to distribute books to the masses. It was our way of empowering the nation. Once upon a time, unless you were a monk or a court scholar, you couldn’t even have access to books. Gutenberg (actually, some Chinese inventor, but I grew up in the West and regrettably am not schooled in Chinese history, but I DO know it was actually some Chinese inventor first…) allowed the working class to become literate.

During the cultural revolution, what was cherished underground? Books. During any form of political oppression, the first thing the Big Government wants gone is the books and the first thing the passive-resistance wants to get their hands on is the books. I don’t agree that the Internet replaces the channels of information distribution that books provide. The Internet is quite organic, constantly changing, and it’s a heck of a lot easier to take down a website or delete an e-book than it is to BURN a book. Plus, the act of burning a book itself is significant, one that cannot be replaced by any other act, e.g., taking down a blog.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. It’s early morning here and I haven’t had my coffee yet, but my point, if it was somehow lost up there, is that I fear we’re entering a new political era, one of Big Governments, one where the masses are now effectively dumber than before (making them easier to control by said Big Government), not so much because they aren’t empowered with information, but because they don’t know how to distill and use all the information they have access to. And a lot of this state of affairs can be attributed to the downfall of books.

Thanks for the advice! I may have mentioned that we may have a need for a non-literary POD project. It’s great that you’ve done this, and I totally commend you on the publication of your books.

Akrypti,

Thanks for the heads up! I’ve read Lahiri, and I loved her work. I’ve also heard good things about Nam Le. I’ll check out Ma Jian.

(I’ll be finishing Wikinomics in the next few days, and I just started Supernanny–I love that show! I need to get back to fiction soon…)

In non-fiction, that book Factory Girls got in and Fareed Zakaria’s Post American World (a good read).