Media/Publishing Issue 1 (How e-Textbooks, Online Modules Could Keep Journalism Education Current)

(Source: novinthen.com)

By the time the book reaches the hands of college students after the long wait between writing and publication, it has become outdated. Capeloto (2011) writes on how e-Textbooks, an online modules can help keep journalism education up to date. She mentions CourseSmart, a publisher that has already provided more than 90 percent of the e-textbooks in use today and Inkling, a San Francisco startup that has rolled out more than 100 higher education titles through the tablet. In her opinion, e-textbooks are more like software than online books. Just like an operating system, it has portable, interactive units that can be updated whenever necessary. She also points out that despite the whole book publishing process is moving towards a digital age, the editing and care that publishers take with book manuscripts should not change. Lecturers should not be flooded with updated content and students should not bear the costs of frequent needless updates.

All texts are multimodal however language always has to be realized though and comes in the company of other semiotic modes (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1998). Back then when words are monomodal, the most highly valued kind is the speech and writing. Illustration is not paid much attention to as it is believed that graphics destroy balance. The situation now however, is reversed. Layout of the text, pictures and other graphic elements on a page are the ones that matters now. Writing in this decade involves close attention to typeface choices and layouts. The advancement of technology now allows publishers to adapt chapters from print textbook into tablets and include interactive graphics, videos and web links into these modules. It is no longer just texts; now students can read the words with pictures to assist them at understanding the topic better. Multimodality is practiced along with the improvement of technologies.

However in my own opinion, digital textbooks can never replace print textbooks despite the latter may be outdated when it reaches the market. E-textbooks may offer quicker book updates but it can never offer the same print experience. The feeling of touching an actual book is nothing an electronic tablet can provide.

Adelaine

(355 words)

Reference

Capeloto, A 2011, How e-Textbooks, Online Modules Could Keep Journalism Education Current, MediaShift, viewed 15 November 2011, http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/08/how-e-textbooks-online-modules-could-keep-journalism-education-current237.html

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’, in Bell, A & Garrett, P (eds), Approaches to Media Discourse, Blackwell, Oxford, pp.186-219.