Georgia Library Quarterly, Winter 2010

Complete issue of Georgia Library Quarterly, Winter 2010, vol. 47, no. 1

Digital Media Battleground

Current digital media distribution platforms continue their march towards streaming service-based infrastructures, delivering content to users when and where they want it: laptops, set top boxes, home entertainment systems, and the new ubiquity: mobile devices. This model was first demonstrated by utilizing the multicast backbone technology in the early 1990s and took the better part of a decade to make inroads in changing the way individuals consume broadcast, mainstream, and syndicated video media. It took the advent of streaming technology, high-speed internet adoption, and a willingness from content owners to license their treasured content with upstart streaming media platform companies. Digital music distribution showed consumers, content owners, and distribution channels what can happen when one player effectively creates a new, disruptive technology platform, i.e. Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Now content owners are afraid of a single distributor dictating the methods, prices, and channels by which their content reaches consumers. Today, streaming technology is making a play against the incumbent iTunes transactional model of Buy, Download, and Own digital distribution by providing varies models to consumers: integrated advertising-based, subscription-based, and traditional cable “packages” with integrated on-demand streaming, all of which retain no permanence or ownership for the end user. Content owners are treading carefully, trying to avoid the single, dominant point of distribution that Apple achieved in music distribution. The results of this are less optimal from both a market standpoint and especially the experience for consumers. Media companies frequently change the terms of their licenses, or drastically increasing their licensing costs, causing radical fluctuations in the long-term viability of the nascent distribution platforms. Consumers interact with this environment through complicated, multiparty subscriptions, multiple applications or web interfaces, umpteen logins, various bills, and a nebulous understanding and ability to sit down and watch premium content when and where they want it. The entire market is in its juvenile form, stretching, growing, and trying to find that balance of monetization and the critical mass of consumer adoption required to truly transform media consumption from the real-time, over-the-air broadcast format it has been since television’s inception, to a time-shifted, choose your own, content delivery system based around the internet as the delivery medium. In this paper we idealize the situation by analyzing the largest incumbents for each of the monetization models, provide input into their strength and weaknesses and finally analyze and postulate what we believe will the trends and concerns moving forward into this new digital media panacea

Reading habits in the digital age: marketing strategies to promote reading among children and young adults

Reading is a form of active learning, and cultivation of reading habits is vital for every child and young adult. However, according to the world’s most in-depth and trustworthy indicator of students’ abilities, PISA, reading skills among youngsters are barely improving. The project aims to deliver answers to the questions: what is the overall state of the reading habits of European children and young adults?; how is reading encouraged and promoted to children and young adults in the digital age?; what marketing and advertising strategies and initiatives are being introduced and practiced in Europe to encourage and promote reading among children and young adults?. To follow this aim we propose a survey overview on children’s and young adult’s reading habits and attitudes; bibliographical review of previous research on the topic of reading promotion, positive practices and marketing strategies; and a questionnaire survey, conducted among European organizations, involved in book and reading promotion. By observing the gathered data, we were able to conclude that reading habits and attitudes of children and young adults are predetermined at a very young age. The most important influencing factors that we examined were the active home literacy environment with access to books and literacy materials at an early age; the application of the reading aloud practice, starting at infancy; the kindergarten and school environment. What is more, we concluded that all adults, participating in children’s lives: parents; relatives; educators; librarians; social media influencers are role models with a strong influence on the shaping of the attitudes of youngsters towards reading.Ler é uma forma de aprendizagem ativa e o cultivo de hábitos de leitura é vital para todas as crianças e jovens adultos. No entanto, de acordo com o indicador mais aprofundado e confiável do mundo sobre as competências dos alunos, o PISA, as competências de leitura entre os jovens não estão a melhorar. Este projecto tem como objetivo dar resposta às seguintes questões: qual é o estado geral dos hábitos de leitura das crianças e jovens europeus ?; como a leitura é incentivada e promovida para crianças e jovens na era digital ?; que estratégias e iniciativas de marketing e publicidade estão a ser introduzidas e praticadas na Europa para encorajar e promover a leitura entre crianças e jovens adultos ?. Para cumprir este objetivo, propomos uma pesquisa geral sobre os hábitos e atitudes de leitura de crianças e jovens adultos; uma revisão bibliográfica de pesquisas anteriores sobre o tema promoção da leitura, práticas positivas e estratégias de marketing; e um inquérito por questionário, realizado entre organizações europeias envolvidas na promoção do livro e da leitura. Pela observação dos dados recolhidos, podemos concluir que os hábitos de leitura e as atitudes de crianças e adultos jovens são pré-determinados numa idade muito jovem. Os fatores de influência mais importantes que examinamos foram o ambiente ativo de alfabetização domiciliária com acesso a livros e materiais de alfabetização desde a infância; a aplicação da prática da leitura em voz alta, desde a infância; o jardim de infância e o ambiente escolar. Além disso, concluímos que todos os adultos, participando na vida das crianças: pais; parentes; educadores; bibliotecários; os influenciadores das redes sociais são modelos de comportamento com forte influência na formação das atitudes dos jovens em relação à leitura

Getting On Boards with modern marketing and publicity: A case study on creating a bestselling author

This project report is an in-depth case study into how Appetite by Random House acquired a first-time author with small social media following and collaborated with her to create one of 2019’s top 10 bestselling cookbooks in Canada. This report provides an extensive look into the editorial process, creative direction, and marketing campaign for On Boards by Lisa Dawn Bolton. It also refers to articles published by industry experts, with a goal of providing statistical research that describes industry standards and perspectives, especially in the cookbook industry. The opening chapter provides information on Appetite, the cooking and lifestyle imprint of Penguin Random House Canada, documents my internship experience there, and introduces standard modern requirements for acquisitions. Chapter 2 provides background information on cookbooks as a genre in publishing. Chapter 3 explores how Appetite met Bolton and her non-traditional method of pitching her proposal, while also giving content on the movement of eating food on boards. Chapter 4 discusses the editorial and design process used in the creation of On Boards. Chapter 5 outlines the marketing and publicity plan for On Boards, including conversations I had with On Boards’ publicist and ad campaign data from three major social platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Chapter 6 discusses the media coverage that On Boards achieved and analyzes sales, including data from BookNet Canada, SalesData, MyHouse (the proprietary internal data management and reporting platform of Penguin Random House), and The Canadian Book Market 2019 report. In the seventh and final chapter, I conclude with my reflections on additional marketing techniques Appetite could consider for publishing future cookbooks

Engage in Public Scholarship! A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication

Public scholarship – sharing research with audiences outside of academic settings – has become increasingly necessary to counter the rise of misinformation, to fill gaps from cuts to traditional media, and to increase the reach of important scholarship by making it available to the public. However, engaging in these efforts also comes with the risk of harassment and threats – especially for women, people of colour, queer communities, and precariously employed workers. Engage in Public Scholarship! provides constructive guidance on how to translate research into inclusive public outreach while ensuring that such efforts are accessible for a range of abilities as well as safer for those involved. In clear and helpful language, Alex D. Ketchum discusses practices and planning for a great range of educational activities – from in-person and online events, conferences, and lectures, to publishing and working with the media, to social media activity, blogging, and podcasting. Using an intersectional feminist lens, this book serves as a concise approach to the key challenges and benefits of feminist and accessible public scholarship by surveying debates and offering solutions. Examining the needs for long-term preservation and impact, Ketchum discusses issues relating to digital sustainability, maintenance, the concept of “openness,” and how to be mindful of exclusionary barriers that impede access. A useful and readable guidebook for scholars, students, and content creators, Engage in Public Scholarship! offers both encouragement and toolkits for reaching audiences and sharing knowledge in practical and more equitable ways. Dr. Alex D. Ketchum is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies of McGill University

Visualizing Digital Identity

We cannot see what our digital identity looks like or view what it says about our behavior, feelings, or actions that are stored online. The data that is collected by surveillance from our smartphones build a fragmented and distorted reflection of ourselves. This stockpile of our data and this mirrored self it creates have become an increasingly valuable commodity that fuels the surveillance economy. While the existence of these datasets is not always obvious, they are attainable by request while the reflection of yourself they create is a heavily guarded secret. The digital identity created by this collection of data is explored through visual communication design. Datasets were acquired by applications such as Google, Spotify and Instagram from my smartphone. With this information I explore if design methodology can be applied to create a representation of my digital identity, and what critical reflections can these representations reveal about my digital identity? New processes were explored by using researching through design. In this process, the disconnections between concepts contained within the topic of digital surveillance and digital identity are analyzed. The scope of the project and the visualizations move through cycles of simplification as they narrow towards a place where a reflection can be made. These visualizations use Methodology from Surrealism and Discursive Design in their process and reflection. This recounts my research through design, and explores visualization of digital identity through using design as a medium for understanding. The visualizations move in a timeline through a series of iterative explorations. Each iteration contains its own context, process, and reflection. The iterative exploration moves towards understanding the digital identity by approaching the subject from multiple perspectives and executions of design. A theme of a distorted and fragmented reflection appears as the visualizations evolve in their process of iteration. The resulting understanding of a digital identity may never be finalized, but the resulting discourse invited through exploration becomes subjective reflections. This understanding of our fragmented and distorted reflections of our digital identity opens possibilities for further research.Master of Design, Visual CommunicationMAV

Share your Story 2021

100+ libraries from South Carolina\u27s 7 congressional districts join in a collaborative library advocacy campaign to share their services and experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Forwards written from SCLA, the South Carolina Association of School Librarians, Friends of South Carolina Libraries, and the Association of Public Library Administrators

Share your story

A collaborative library advocacy campaign highlighting South Carolina library services from 2019 until 202

Beyond Media Borders, Volume 1

This open access book promotes the idea that all media types are multimodal and that comparing media types, through an intermedial lens, necessarily involves analysing these multimodal traits. The collection includes a series of interconnected articles that illustrate and clarify how the concepts developed in Elleström’s influential article The Modalities of Media: A Model for Understanding Intermedial Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) can be used for methodical investigation and interpretation of media traits and media interrelations. The authors work with a wide range of old and new media types that are traditionally investigated through limited, media-specific concepts. The publication is a significant contribution to interdisciplinary research, advancing the frontiers of conceptual as well as practical understanding of media interrelations. This is the first of two volumes. It contains Elleström’s revised article and six other contributions focusing especially on media integration: how media products and media types are combined and merged in various ways