Power over publishing: organised publishing's strategic suppression of the trade e-book.

Guthrie, R, 2006. Power over publishing: organised publishing's strategic suppression of the trade e-book. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

Following the growth of interest in the e-book as a solution to many of the Anglo-American trade publishing industry's perceived problems, this study examines how and why the trade e-book, in the period 1998 - 2004, did not develop as many predicted it would, examining how the e-book could has been suppressed to protect existing trade print book interests, and as a consequence, how and why Anglo-American trade publishers have denied consumers basic technological and informational rights and freedoms. Reviewing the historical, technological, economic and legal foundations of power relations distributed throughout the trade book industry, technologies of control emerge demonstrating how defences have been organised against the e-book. Concentrating in the main on the U.S. scenario, where e-book developments have been the most significant, this study focuses on power relations within the trade book industry in order to analyse and understand key economic, technological and legal events, statements, documents, and recent and past historical accounts of trade publishing leading up to and including the e-book. Positing and contrasting theoretical and historical accounts of power helps uncover prevailing issues and contradictions generated and exacerbated by competing agents.

Power Over Publishing leads to conclusions on how corporate publishing power functions and maintains its position within the trade book industry, how trade publishers and parent media and entertainment conglomerates within the wider cultural industries interrelate, showing for the first time, how and why the development of trade e-book and e- reader technology has been manipulated by established print book power centres, in order to absorb, counter and nullify this disruptive new digital rival.

Item Type:	Thesis
Creators:	Guthrie, R.
Date:	2006
ISBN:	9781369316469
Identifiers:	Number Type PQ10183445 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Arts and Humanities
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	25 Sep 2020 15:05
Last Modified:	08 Sep 2023 12:59
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/40961

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