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Oligarchy of New Media

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Electronic Books and ePublishing
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Abstract

For better and more likely for worse, this section describes (or is it predicts) some future developments in electronic publishing and electronic books. McLuhan’s oligarchy consisted of radio and television and now that oligarchy could be expanded to include the World Wide Web. Will electronic books represent a force that once again places books among the oligarchy?

“I have said that the medium is the message in the long run…Print simply wiped out the main modes of oral education…and the manuscript throughout the medieval period. And it ended that twenty-Jive-hundred-yearp attern in a few decades. Today, the monarchy of print has ended and an oligarchy of new media has usurped most of the power of thatfive-hundred-year-old monarchy.” Marshall McLuhan, 1959

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag London

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Henke, H. (2001). Oligarchy of New Media. In: Electronic Books and ePublishing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0317-2_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0317-2_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-435-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-0317-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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