Northern Lights: Books and publishing in a digital age
The 2015 volume of the journal Northern Lights concerns the ongoing transformations of the medium of the book in terms of technology, industry, aesthetics and culture. It is edited by Rasmus Helles and Stig Hjarvard (University of Copenhagen) and brings together perspectives from several research fields, in particular media studies, publishing studies, and literary sociology. The first part of the volume considers the changing technological and industrial context of book publishing, in particular digitalization of the industry, the emergence of e-books and audiobooks, and the influence of open access policies. In the second part of the volume the contributions focus on the transformations of the book medium itself, i.e. how texts and literary aesthetics are influenced by new technologies and how authorship and reading of books are culturally changed.