(Written during semester 1/2008, for IMC402)
Introduction
The word media is the Latin plural of medium. It is the main means of mass communication, encompassing television, radio, and newspapers.
Printed media is the state of materials or contents being available in published form. Sometimes called static media, they exist in solid form, which can be held, or touched.
Electronic media, also known as digital media, are contents carried out by using computers, or other electronic devices. They consist of binary bits processed through a complex computer-driven encoding-decoding cycle. An electronic or a digital medium may closely resemble a printed medium, but is not spatially or materially bound.
This paper discusses both media’s advantages and disadvantages, and their use in three areas; education, libraries, and publishing.
A brief history of printed matter
To discover the history of printed matter, it is important to note that printing technology emerged later than did writing. Therefore, the history of the books is chosen as a foundation to understanding the origin of print-based media.
The use of books in ancient time was discovered as early as about 2400 BC, although historians revealed that writing appears to have developed between the 7th millennium BC and the 4th millennium BC. In Ancient Egypt, papyrus, a thick paper-like material, was used for writing.
Papyrus books were in the form of scrolls, rolled out horizontally, sometimes taking up to 10 meters, or more in length. The length of the scroll was owed to several sheets of papyrus being pasted together. Some papyrus-based books reached even over 40 metres long. Ancient Egyptians used papyrus also for commercial messages and political campaigns.
By AD 800, the use of papyrus was replaced by parchment, which was prepared from skins of animals such as sheep, cattle, donkey and antelope. Although papyrus was cheaper and relatively easier to produce, it had the disadvantages of being fragile, susceptible to moisture, and excessively dry. Compared with papyrus, parchment was more solid, and allowed erasing of text written on it.
As the technology of woodblock printing developed, introduced by the Chinese, textile was used, and later replaced by paper. Although the solid text printing has been put down in history as to have originated from China, woodblock technology maybe is not the first equipment for printing.
An archaeological finding; the Phaistos Disc, has been classified as to have existed earlier in moveable type printing. The disc, made from clay and round (about 15 centimetres in diameter) is inscribed with 45 unique signs, believed to represent everyday things.
A brief history of electronic media
An electronic medium may be in either analogue or in digital format. The term “electronic media” is usually associated with content, recorded on a storage medium. However, any devices or equipments used in electronic communication are also considered as electronic media.
To find out the invention of electronic media, it is essential to give credit to the people who invented the telephone, the instrument to transfer information through a medium, electrically or mechanically. Although Alexander Graham Bell is often recognised as the creator of the telephone, credit for inventing the electric telephone remains in dispute.
Besides Alexander Graham Bell, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, and Elisha Gray, among others, have all been credited with the invention. Historians argued that Bell was merely the first to patent the telephone.
The first electrochemical telegraph was constructed in 1809, and later followed by the first electromagnetic telegraph in 1832. Wireless radio came to life in 1897, and television tuner was invented circa 1927.
During World War II, the existence of the “Colossus”, an electronic computer created for the military to break German codes, was kept as a tightly-guarded secret until the 1970s.
Rapid growth in transmission technology has also enabled knowledge-seeking society to have access to more electronic and digital information through the medium that we very much enjoy using today, the World Wide Web. This, of course, is owing to Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of ARPANET in 1969, the first global connection of computers meant for US military.
Since then, anything and everything digital and electronic have never looked back. Connectivity technology has expanded so extensively that it is no longer an excuse to not have enough information. Furthermore, nowadays with almost everyone owns a smart mobile phone cum PDA, being connected to the borderless world becomes hassle-free.
Printed Media vs. Electronic Media in Education, Libraries, and Publishing.
Education
The “chalk and talk” is ‘the old school’ pedagogical approach, used in classroom to deliver curricula contents to students. In Malaysia, this method is still being practised at primary and secondary schools, especially in rural areas. Even with the presence of ICT, and the government’s effort in introducing smart schools under its MSC flagship, textbooks still play an important role as the main teaching aid in classroom. What the teachers teach on the blackboard, the students will copy into their note books, which will later be used as a source of reference, alongside their textbooks, revision books, and worksheets.
Unfortunately, many students do not benefit from this approach. The conventional schools focus most of their attention on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence. This will give advantages to students who are “word smart” and “number/reasoning smart” only. Hence, students who are outside this circle will be ‘slow’ to pick up in the classroom. As a result, they feel left out and are always labelled “learning disabled”, “ADD (attention deficit disorder)”, or simply “underachievers”.
Enter colleges and universities. Contrary to their older siblings (primary and secondary schools – regarded older siblings being the earlier stage of education in one’s life cycle), the booming of ICT has spurred many higher education institutions to venture into the convenience of e-learning.
E-learning is well suited for distance learning and flexible learning, but may also be used in face-to-face teaching (Blended learning). This has led to a new dimension in interactive and collaborative learning anytime and anywhere dynamically. Electronic media help students to learn at their own pace, and at their own place.
The process of transforming conventional methods and media to electronic-based education is certainly not without failures and faults. These days, most lecturers utilise the simplicity of using slideshows as means of delivering their lectures. While this is definitely an electronic-based media, it hardly qualifies as e-learning. Multimedia-rich contents, plus other creative approaches that are taking into account the Multiple Intelligences theory (Gardner, 1983), will facilitate learning more effectively.
Libraries – do we need them when information is just a click away?
Libraries have long been known as the main contributor to civilization. A library houses various types of information-bearing entities such as books, journals, magazines, and newspaper articles, in printed, electronic and/or other forms of media, for use by the users.
Every year, the world produces more than 1 Million Gigabytes of information stream – only 0.03% of which originates from written or printed works. Judging by the escalation rate of information being published on the World Wide Web, one may easily dismiss the role of libraries in disseminating information and knowledge to the society.
A study of reading habit among academicians and university students in Malaysia was conducted by University of Malaya. The finding stated that university students read an average of 4 books only per year, while lecturers read 20 books in three years (Abu Hassan Hasbullah, 2007).
Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, when asked about the Amazon Kindle e-book strategy, said:
It does not matter how good or bad the product is. The fact is that people don’t read anymore. 40% of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year (2007).
Now, given both statistics, how can one argue that libraries are still relevant in this digital era?
While we move towards creating the new learning and knowledge-seeking community, we need not dispose of a traditional library building. Besides, considering the rapid growth in the use of internet, findings from Household Use of the Internet Survey in 2005, Malaysia, is not very encouraging.
The report indicated that as the third quarter of 2005, the internet penetration rate (number of subscribers per 100 inhabitants) for dial-up access is 13.8%, and for broadband is 1.64%. The broadband penetration rate in the industrialised nations of East Asia such as Singapore is almost 14%, Hong Kong at 22%, and South Korea, 25%.
One can only wonder why in this day and age of the growing internet, that one can be contented with only a dial-up connection. On the other hand, this shows that Malaysians have not fully embraced ICT. (Wilfred Lim, 2006)
This also proves, that the digital divide is more likely to widen than narrow. Therefore, it becomes one of the roles of libraries: bridging the digital divide.
Yes, the fact is, libraries will survive because of the emergence, explosion and introduction of new digital technologies. It is important to regard that the notion of technology replacing libraries is falsehood. With the advance in technology, electronic media becomes a catalyst in reinventing the library as a learning space.
Our sources of information have been diversified, and as such, both printed and digital materials are indispensable. In our libraries, many written works are vulnerable to fading, and general wear and tear. Hence, it is crucial to future-proof those literary works.
Apart from storing electronic publications, libraries around the world have been scanning their written work collections. However, one must remember that similar to printed materials withstanding the test of time, digital archiving can be a headache, too. For example, CDs are also subject to age. CDs are able to last for 100 years, but burning one would shorten the longevity to less than 5 years. It is not without just cause that CD backups be conducted every 5 years.
Another question may pop up in your head: why do we need the printed materials when we already have them securely in digital form? Let us do not forget the digital divide and ICT illiteracy. Plus, printed materials become so much handy when the simplest problem in electronic media arises, such as blackout. Remember the Taiwan earthquake last year, which has crippled a lot of internet activities in our country? That is another simple reason, why the society still needs materials in libraries in printed form.
Publishing
Electronic publishing has one advantage unrivalled by print publishing: capacity for multimedia. It is undisputable that the cost of publishing books is much lower than producing multimedia contents. However, electronic publishing, whether it be in CD-ROMs, or Web pages for example, has a greater information capacity.
Multimedia contents are very likely to capture more interest compared with a static media. As a sample of comparison, consider the following: you are tasked to search for information on the history of Sabak Bernam, a district in Selangor. You discover that there are 2 types of materials available in Perpustakaan Raja Tun Uda, Shah Alam; a book, and a DVD containing animated stories. Which one would be your first choice?
Most often than not, the DVD appeals to most people, compared with its counterpart. The information provided is the same, but multimedia contents will most likely attract people’s attention.
Publishing one’s work on the World Wide Web nowadays is not only stress-free on the author’s part; it is cheaper, guarantees wider coverage, and reaches larger number of readers. For instance, Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, has more than 2 millions contents, of which anyone is free to edit.
However, it is imperative to note that while the information published on the Net is easily accessible, this has given room for plagiarism. With the exponential increase of information being disseminated on the Net, it is close to impossible to detect plagiarism.
Let’s take a look at publishing scenario in the most recent event in Malaysia, General Election 2008. The voting system was maintained in using printed materials, despite the election being held in ICT era.
Nonetheless, the voting results were released in both media: mainstream newspapers, television channels, and the internet. The results aired on the television were furnished almost every 15-20 minutes, the internet: published and refreshed every 5-10 minutes, while the newspapers were published only the following day.
Having the printed version of information might have given a certain assurance of accuracy to some people, but in this case, it was proven otherwise. The newspapers’ version was only accurate up to 3 am in the morning on the day after the election. Whereas on the television and the internet – not only that the information supplied was 24 hours around the clock, the accuracy and the timeliness was up to the minute it was released!
Conclusion
Printed media in digital age – are they still relevant?
When radio was first introduced in America, there was talk of “the death of books”. The same prediction was made 50 years later when television was invented. Yet, books, being low maintenance, energy-efficient, and portable, have survived the “doomsday prophecy”, as have the other print-based media.
Coming back to the present era, the digital age; inclinations and assumptions that the popularity of printed media is slowly dying, persist. Yet, the current scenario indicates otherwise. Publishing houses worldwide compete aggressively in publishing new bestsellers.
Since the Harry Potter phenomenon, the books industry has grown unexpectedly. After the release of the last instalment of the highly anticipated novel last year: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, many new authors cum J.K. Rowling-wannabes have been born.
Publications aside, other fields, namely education, advertising, and especially government, still depend heavily on printed media, in one way or another. For instance, despite many universities either converting, or gradually transforming to e-learning, some of their courses or academic contents, printed materials still matter.
Despite the fact that news today is widely and easily accessible on television and on the internet, newspapers are still sought after every morning, worldwide. Printed media also remain to be one of the mainstream channels for advertisements.
The advantages of electronic media over printed media are unbeatable, but both are interdependent. Progresses and advances are only enhancements, not replacements of priors and pioneers. We created Dolly - the first ever biological clone, from the cells of a sheep. Does that mean we should start producing sheep from this method, discarding the course of nature, just because we found a way to duplicate and replicate?
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