The Impact of the Book on Asymmetric Civilization

International audienceTo what extend books and reading can be included in the project of the “asymmetrical civilization”? The point is, that the book by nature is politically active, because of the fact that along with many other functions the reforming function is inherent to the book. Often it has invisible, but definite role in the personal, public and global projects. In global aspect it turned out that reading will present the overall surprises

Reading of empty media

English: The research is dedicated to two questions: whether the media bearers without text, the books without letters and the entirely emtpty book could be called books and whether they could be readable. The medialogical analysis is oriented to the creative decisions for transformation of the emptiness or the silence into media, when the emptiness of the media body represents a metamessage about reading without eyes. It is made a systematical survey of a maximum wide spectrum of empty media – empty fine art, empty musical compositions, empty literary works, empty books, empty newspapers, and empty pages. There were discovered 13 reasons about the existence of a total or partial emptiness in media.Bulgarian: Изледването е посветено на два въпроса: дали медийните носители без текст, книгите без букви и напълно празните книги могат да се нарекат книги и могат ли да се четат. Медиологичният анализ е насочен към творческите решения за превръщане на празнотата или мълчанието в медия, когато празнотата на медийното тяло е метапослание за четене без очи. Направен е систематичен обзор на широк спектър от празни медии – празно изобразително изкуство, празни музикални произведения, празни литературни произведения, празни книги, празни вестници, празни страници. Разкрити са 13 причини за съществуването на тотална или частична празнота в медиите

The shadows of reading: Reasons for the bad results of Bulgarians in PISA studies

English: The subject of this article are the factors and reasons for the bad results in reading of the Bulgarian 15-year-old students in PISA's international studies. The reference points of the analysis are the critical results from the last four studies - 2000, 2006, 2009 and 2012. The aim of this analysis is to bring up for discussion unformulated topics and reading angles which have not been covered, which may explain the reason for the critical results in reading, including in the European Union as a whole. The goals of the report are to look for arguments and evidence in communication theory, in the conclusions of sociological studies and to summarize the factors which may lessen the ongoing preoccupation with "mass non-reading" or the "drop in reader's literacy". Eight reasons for the critical state of reading literacy have been drawn: 1) basic illiteracies which stem from the incorrect attitude towards reading as a cultural technology; 2) the stereotype "book = literature"; 3) the stereotype "book = paper"; 4) helplessness of sociological tools; 5) the manipulative side of reading; 6) the harmful side of reading; 7) reading mutations; 8) the erroneous statement "Young people do not read". The scientists are presented with proposals to concentrate on two academic points: "Theory and practice of reading" classes on each educational level and focusing research efforts to improve readership culture of adults, including development of the so called "Acmeology of reading".Russian: Объектом статьи являются факторы и причины плохих результатов в чтении болгарских 15-летних школьниках в международных исследованиях PISA. Начальной точкой анализа являются критические результаты последних четыре исследований - 2000, 2006, 2009 и 2012 г. Цель анализа состоит в том, чтобы поставить на обсуждение темы и незатронутые ракурсы чтения, в которых могут прятаться причины критических результатов грамотности чтения, в том числе всего Европейского Союза. Заданиями статьи являются: поиск аргументов и доказательств в коммуникационной теории, в выводах социологических обследовании, а так же и обобщение факторов, которые могли бы облегчить нескончаемое беспокойство по поводу "массового не чтения" или "коллапса в читательской грамотности". Выявлены восемь причин критического состояния грамотности чтения: 1) Основная неграмотность в результате плохого отношение к чтению, как культурная технология; 2) Клише "книга = литература"; 3) Клише "книга = бумага"; 4) Беспомощность социологических инструментов; 5) манипулятивная сторона чтения; 6) приносящая вреду сторона чтения; 7) мутации чтения; 8) искаженное утверждение "Молодые люди не читают". Формированы предложения к ученым сконцентрироваться на двух академических ракурсах: на обучении "Теория и практика чтения" на каждом уровне образования, и на том, как направить научно-исследовательскую работу на усовершенствование культуры чтения взрослых, в том числе на развитие так называемой "Акмеологии чтения"

The effects of reputation on inequality in network cooperation games

In the last several decades, ample evidence from across evolutionary biology, behavioural economics, and econophysics has solidified our knowledge that reputation can promote cooperation across different contexts and environments. Higher levels of cooperation entail higher final payoffs on average but how are these payoffs distributed among individuals? This study investigates how public and objective reputational information affects payoff inequality in repeated social dilemma interactions in large groups. We consider two aspects of inequality: excessive dispersion of final payoffs and diminished correspondence between final payoff and cooperative behaviour. We use a simple heuristics-based agent model to demonstrate that reputational information does not always increase the dispersion of final payoffs in strategically updated networks, and actually decreases it in randomly rewired networks. More importantly, reputational information almost always improves the correspondence between final payoffs and cooperative behaviour. We analyse empirical data from nine experiments of the repeated Trust, Helping, Prisoner’s Dilemma, and Public Good games in networks of ten or more individuals to provide partial support for the predictions. Our research suggests that reputational information not only improves cooperation but may also reduce inequality

Compromise duality between mobile reading and stationary reading: an analysis of culture of the media nomadism

The research is an attempt to answer the question how far the mobility manages to preserve the cognitive and the social status of the reader and to minimize the negatives of the “technological” reading. Object of the research: the new phase in the changes of the reader’s practices that have occurred with the massive use of mobile communication devices. By the notion “mobile reading“ the author mark the perception of text from a portable or from a mobile digital device and with the notion “stationary reading“ – the perception of text from a fixed medium as a print media and as a desktop device. Purpose of the research: to prove that the mobility is the newest, natural and indestructible stage in the evolution of the reading, within the frames of which are passing mixed transformations, inherent as a whole to the „culture of the nomadism”. Methodology: there are used the methods of the analytic and synthetic processing of primary and secondary resources, the selective monographic method, analysis of combination of statistical data and information from a survey of the National Bulgarian Institute of Statistics for access and use of Internet and the results of two world researches – „Reading in the Mobile Era: A study of mobile reading in developing countries” of UNESCO and „Mobiles for Reading: A Landscape Review” of USAID and JBS. Hypothesis: the new format of the mobile reading (counterpoint of stationary reading) is not a random phenomenon, but a regular and cyclical metamorphosis in the evolution of the communications. Results: the analysis shows an approximately equal correlation between the positives and the negatives of the reading from mobile devices. The suggestion of the author is the reader’s behavior of the mobile citizen to be formed in „compromise duality” – the information, the data, the facts, the references can be assigned to „mobile” modalities, but the knowledge, the learning, the aesthetic delight of the text to be preserved in „stationary modality”

Fear from the Readers

International audienceThe reading bear the great cultural responsibility not to allow the mass communication to serve the individual sovereignty contra-adaptive and anti-manipulative under the pressure of the mass and the unifications. The reader cultivates in himself a tendency to counteracting, anarchism, self-confidence, optimism and information superiority. These are vested functions of reading as „dangerous“ mental process. Referring Police Unit for Combating Organized Crime’s operation “blocking the pirate book distribution in Internet through www.chitanka.info”. On the 22th of June 2010 Bulgarian Police Unit for Combating Organized Crime hit the Internet-based network for distributing contents chitanka.info. The police was alarmed by multiple sources including The Bulgarian Book Association, The Union of Translators in Bulgaria, and different publishing houses. The action was claimed a success in the fight against Internet piracy

The Revival of Long Reading: A New Multimodal Narrative Format

The goal of this study is to specify nature, the "heart and soul" of a process referred to as a "long reading", to indentify reasons for the interest in the so-called longread narrative formats, unexpectedly going up in times of obviously reverse trends, such as, for example, short and speed reading techniques. The cyclic recurrence registered in case of ‘lengthy twist’ in the reading matters demonstrates that each transfer to shorter-size books gives a chance, probability, to become a step to long books. The key research findings indicate that longread formats are increasingly more and more popular, as these texts enable readers to keep out of the information pollution. The outcomes and conclusions are focusing on expanding the conceptional fields towards new policies stimulating reading and to more creative methods producing reading effects into the sphere of quality online journalism, education, publishing industries and popularization of science, at large. This article is the result of a collaboration made possible by the COST Action IS1404 E-READ (Evolution of Reading in the Age of Digitisation), supported by the EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020, and the research project DCOST 01/13 - 04.08.2017 of the National Scientific Fund of Bulgaria

Scientific reassessment of the publishing evolution: a media-archaeological approach to prospective studies of book as medium

Modern media are characterized by extraordinary diversification and derivatisation. Multimodality has become central to all factors of the communication process - sources, codes, messages, channels and networks, intermediaries and agents, as well as end recipients. The most serious collisions occur in the field of publishing and books. Object of the research: A formal reason for this article is the 550th anniversary from the death of Johannes Gutenberg (ca. 1400–1468) used to re-examine and re-define the book as the oldest and, at the same time, most promising media in the world of publishing. Purpose of the research: To revise the periodisation of the publishing evolution outside the four phases of the 560-year biography of the print format of the book: incunables or early- printed books, post– incunables or first-printed books, old-printed books, and new-printed books or contemporary printed books. Methodology/approach: The archaeological approach to the study of media reveals larger-scale reasoning behind the evolution of the book as a medium: Pre-Gutenberg, Gutenberg and Post–Gutenberg book. Results: Each of the three phases is governed by five principles that also pre-empt the future of the print medium in the 21st century: the principle of bureaucracy, the principle of antagonism, the principle of fanaticism, the principle of emancipation and the principle of "form follows function". The perspective of media archaeology helps to correct the historical place and the evolutionary stance of the inventions pertaining to the Gutenberg Galaxy - the print medium, the printing press, the printed book, and paper as a printing resource. Implications: The conclusions may prove important for outlining the technological and ideological patterns affecting the invention and decline not only of the printed book but of every publication format before and after Gutenberg. Acknowledgements: This article was written as part of a research project implemented with the support of the Sofia University Science Fund (contract No 80-10-9/16.04.2018)

Book-centered films - a social doping for the reading

The study undertakes the problem of the social, political and the theoretically applied potential of the film representation of the characters of the book and the reading in the programs for the stimulation of reading. The zone of problematic is outlined – publishers do not know well the market of the films, film producers do not know the market of the books, investigators of the book do not know the landscape of the „audiovisual reading”, while the younger generation emancipated its attitude towards films and books – absorbs them through all media platforms; makes the connection between them; criticizes, shares, encourages, has permanent expectations. The thesis, which is defended is that the symbolic and metaphorical use of the motif of the book, the reading, the publishing, the bookstore or the library in screen arts continues to resonate with the themes of knowledge and power and in the digital age, and this can be used as „social doping” for the apathetic and the erratic readers. In this article, the expression „social doping” is used to describe positive licit stimulant. The aim of the study is to explain and argue the book-centered films as multimodal tool for improving of the education in reading and the policies of reading worldwide, especially in communities with a high illiteracy rate. An empirical research on movies for the period 1898-2014 is summarized, accomplished by filmographic analytical and synthetic approach. The results are aimed at expanding the conceptual scope of policies to promote reading and creative approaches of the book production, to promote competition and collaboration between the publishing and the movie companies. Proving book-centered films as a serious and prestigious social instrument is expected to raise the awareness and the exactingness of the readers to the publishing programs and to insist on investing in business models with multiplatform representations, cross-media and transmedia of the artistic content

How the Computer Vindicates the Culture of Reading

International audienceThe computer screen is an emanation of the evolution and on its spiral of the linear language of writing: first appears the level language of the art, afterwards the cinema image with a real sequence of movements on the closed space of the screen, after it the television, which brought at home “the page”, but already animated, the video arises as a “live book”, which is stacked at the library shelves, and at the end comes the display as a “computer page” and as an open, “alive”, dialogical book. This is the basis for determining the contemporary “culture of the computer page” as a metamorphosis of the book culture, a result of the evolution of the book or more precisely of its text