The Book?s Road in the Age of Digitization: A Three-Dimensional Analysis

Although every area of life is permeated by digital processes, the majority of Germans seem to resist digital alternatives with regard to the activity of reading. The printed book continues to enjoy much greater popularity than the eBook. This seems surprising, since the entire communication behavior has moved to digital devices. So what lies behind this? Why are there still printed books in digital times? Previous studies of the printed book have focused primarily on its media future, as this seemed threatened by digitization. In this work, Janina Krieger instead examines the past from three perspectives in order to gain insights into the present. While other studies always chose one method and these mostly belonged to the quantitative approach, here three subjects are identified, which are examined with different methods and in their combination can provide an answer to the research question: the consumers of literature (the readers), literature itself (the selected genre is the novel), and the media theories of the 20th century, which have already dealt with media change.

Janina Krieger holds a PhD in German Literature and Media Studies from the University of Mannheim.