Reading response and thinking about research questions

In general, what are your thoughts after reading the introduction to Book and thinking about the ideas you see that the book addresses (based on looking at the table of contents)?
The book “ A Futurist’s Manifesto” edited by Hugh McGuire and Brian O’Leary address on issues related to publishing, writing, designing, among other affected areas as a result of the introduction of digital technology. Publishing industries have been deteriorating since 2007 when Amazon introduced the Kindle while Apple released iPhone. The Kindle and iPhone made drastically affected the newspapers and music industries. Since they are accessible, consumers of books have shifted to digital contents. Some argue that digital content is portable, reliable and always up to date. Nevertheless, the publishing industry has been reshaped over a century through the creation of websites such as Amazon. The book talks about the shift from analogue to digital where now publishers digitally send contents to distributors and retailers who then reaches the potential consumers.
Consumers download the digital contents into their personal computers, tablets, smartphones, iPhones and other reading devices. The book clearly shows the disadvantages of traditional mode of publishing and marketing of books. The book contains several essays that help the reader to get a concrete conclusion on the effects of digital changes in publishing and music industries. The essays explain the effects on workflow, designing, and metadata. The tools of the digital workflow and designing of books in the digital age are clearly stated in the book. The essay clearly shows the work made by every player in books publishing industry. That is, the worker of publishers, websites, retailers as well as consumers. The book analysis the use of books as a result of the shift other than digital copies of paper objects. (McGuire and OLeary)
2. For each of the two specific essays you read from the book, please do the following. Give the title/author of the essay. Summarize the reading (use about 3 sentences for each summary), and describe its significance in regard to our course theme. Why are these specific essays of interest to you?
“ The Forgotten Consumer” by Jacob Lewis is one of the interesting essay that clearly explain the inefficient market. Digital changes have improved the book industry whereby publishers use the internet to find potential customers for their products. The essay also shows how digital changes have led to growth of talents of many writers and readers. Huge amounts of books, articles, and eBooks are produced every day and this clearly shows development in the publishing industry. The other essay is “ What We Can Do with ‘ Books’” written by Liza Daly. Liza Daly writes about the use of both analogue and digital books. Advantages of normal books are clearly stated. For example, one can fold a page to mark an important area, and lending to a friend is possible. The writer also clearly explains the limitations of digital content whereby, upgrade of electronic books such as books are hard. Digital contents are always affected by censorship of the internet thus making the books inaccessible.
3. What was the most interesting/useful/etc.. thing you took from these readings?
The two essays mainly focus on the main important areas in the publishing sector. Every writer aims at earning some profits from his/her creative writing. A consumer is the only source of income thus efficient distribution method and marketing operations should be improved.
4. Do you have some ideas for potential paper topics for the large research paper you will be writing in this class? Brainstorm and list a few possible topics.
Larger research papers require topics that provide a wide large of information. Examples of potential paper topics include; Anti-Semitism, Dictatorial governments, Internet regulation, equality, education, Energy markets, International trade, Impact of mining, and industrial revolution.
5. In reflecting on your readings so far, what are some questions that occur to you? See this link http://writing. colostate. edu/guides/guide. cfm? guideid= 25 (click continue to the lower right corner of the page to work through several pages of this guide for more ideas on generating possible research questions).
Several questions evolve after reading this book “ A futurist’s Manifesto”. Some of the questions include; what will happen if the internet fails one day? Will education sector survive? What will be effect of internet censorship on publishing and music industries? What cost has it taken to shift to digital? Will there be further changes in the publishing industry after digital shift?
In conclusion, changes in publishing and music industries has led economic growth. Levels of illiteracy has drastically reduced since books are available and accessible. Through the invention of reading devices, smartphones and iPhones, reading has been eased and the cost in printing books has lowered. In fact, publishing companies have reduced costs since they now produce according to consumer demand.
Works cited
McGuire, Hugh and Brian OLeary. A Futurists Manifesto: Essays from the edge of publishing. Boston: OReilly Media, 2012. 7.