Desktop and E-publishing

Overview

Desktop publishing is the process of producing a book, a report, or other publication on a home or work computer. E-publishing, short for electronic publishing, often employs desktop publishing, especially by individuals or independent publishers, but it also refers to e-book releases by traditional publishers. E-publishing and Amazon's dominant role in distribution have put pressure on traditional publishers to adapt to a changing market in which authors can exercise control over when, how, and for what cost their works are released. These changes have also put pressure on writers, who must become experts in cover and page design; hiring editors, proofreaders, indexers, and other professional contractors; and marketing and distribution— elements of publishing that involve costs absorbed by a traditional publisher that fall squarely on an "indie," who publishes their own work. Additionally, desktop and e-publishing have forced readers to evaluate publications in a new way. Open-source journals, for example, give researchers access to a vast number of scientific and academic articles, but the reader must assess a publication for quality or peer-review in the absence of an editorial process that ensures a paper has been thoroughly reviewed.

Desktop and e-publishing are fascinating to scholars because they allow an author's voice to be expressed in a direct, more or less unfiltered way. Publications that are released from large presses often undergo considerable editing and revision, especially if the author is not highly skilled as a writer but possesses information the publisher is interested in publishing. Even skilled and experienced authors receive varying degrees of editorial guidance in the areas of craft and story development before a publisher will consent to publish a manuscript and may find their work ultimately rejected if the publisher remains unsatisfied with it. Further, editors have been known to use a heavy hand in excising or altering an author's unwieldy work or shaping it to align with the editor's own particular tastes or those of a target market. While such revisions are generally approved by the author, they do tend to smooth over characteristics of an author's style, word choice, and at times opinion. Luther, Farmer, and Parks (2017) argue e-publishing allows authors to find and express their voices without the commercial or artistic mediation of a publishing house.

While desktop and e-publishing are often considered together, other non-traditional forms of publishing occurred long before e-publishing was possible. Access to photocopying machines made it possible for individuals and collectives to publish local newspapers, fliers, and magazines from home or by using photocopiers located in schools, libraries, grocery stores, and other community centers or local businesses. Small magazines, often called "zines," were produced by individuals or small groups to express political opinions, engage in popular culture and music, and/or distribute art. Many zines had low distribution numbers, often fewer than 1,000 copies, and were either sold in local bookstores or given away for free. There are examples of zines from as early as the 1920s that were printed in small runs by professional print shops. It was, however, the access to photocopy machines that made it possible for many more individuals to produce the entire publication themselves. This allowed individuals to express a wide array of opinions, commentary, and perspectives. Oftentimes a zine was associated with musical groups and zines were particular popular among fans and producers of punk music who appreciated that zines could be published without relying on mainstream media.

Zines were popular in the United States as well as developing countries such as Turkey where zines were a form of alternative media where they specialized in music, literature, and cultural topics (Oral and Güzeloğlu, 2017). Zines continue to exist, but their production has been made easier by the introduction of desktop publishing—that is, a computer and some publishing software. Some zines are produced using photocopy machines or printers, and others are produced through online self-publishing houses, which provide access to a wide variety of papers, inks, and bindings.

The Internet has made it easier to buy and sell zines in both their physical and electronic forms. To organize and encourage future research about this form of desktop publishing, many libraries have begun collecting zines. This is a significant step and acknowledgment of the significance of zines as publications. The collection of these publications requires a new form of filing and storage to accommodate the differences and creativity found in these publications. For example, zines do not always include information regarding the authors, publication dates, or publishing houses, which librarians typically use to record and organize materials (Cox, 2018). Therefore, librarians have had to catalog zines based on limited information—sometimes by the date on which the library was given the zine—or else by topic.

The emergence of computer-based desktop publishing and e-publishing have enabled individual writers to produce professional quality publications. Access to personal computers and the development of software programs such as Microsoft Word and PageMaker rapidly expanded the ability of writers to publish their own work (Wilson, 2014). For many writers, access to personal computers and publishing software occurred before the Internet was available, or was fast enough to allow consistent online publication. This means that there was a period in which publications produced on personal computers were printed and distributed, or sent to print shops. Then, as the Internet developed, many of those publications moved to online forums, blogs, and journals. The emergence of technology that encouraged portability, such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones, further encouraged online publication. While these technologies and platforms are now commonplace, academics remind us that they are still relatively new technologies. The excitement and creativity caused by these technological advances is recorded and analyzed across the world. For example, Ashuri (2016) has analyzed the ways that Israeli journalists managed the rapid changes that occurred to their newspaper during this time. Similarly, American newspapers have undergone many changes, from the number of staff they employ to the way that they format and deliver their stories to keep up with the demands of readers. Because readers' demands included the ability to read articles for free and to skip ads, on which newspapers depended for revenue, many newspapers ceased publication. Others moved from paper-based publication to online or online-only publication and erected paywalls to encourage subscriptions.

Contemporary journalists and researchers are concerned with the way that online platforms mix social media and journalism. For example, Tandoc and Jenkins (2017) are examining the ways that the American BuzzFeed website presents memes alongside traditional journalism. They are concerned both with the reasons why readers are attracted to BuzzFeed's format and with how more traditional news sources are adapting to keep their own readers from switching to BuzzFeed. These scholars are no longer as concerned that traditional journalism will completely disappear. Instead, scholars now debate whether formats such as BuzzFeed might be able to support traditional journalism while adapting to new reader expectations and demands.

Further Insights

As a result of all of these changes and the number of publications emerging each year, the number of questions that scholars and researchers need to address before they analyze a publication has expanded. Some scholars are concerned with variables regarding the type of publication software that is used, the platforms which publication occurs on, the ways in which the publication is edited, how distribution occurs, and in what ways writers, editors, and graphic designers are paid for their work.

The emergence of desktop and e-publishing has caused a good deal of skepticism among academics, particularly regarding the publication of academic texts from online presses. The primary concern is that scholarly works have not been properly vetted through a process known as peer review. All academic publications go through a process of peer review in which the journal article or book is read and evaluated by experts in the subject of the publication. These experts evaluate the publication to ensure that the information is accurately presented, that research has been ethically conducted, and that the manuscript advances research and scholarship within the subject. Often, this process is done anonymously though "blind-peer review" in which the reviewers do not know the identity of the writer and therefore their judgments are not be clouded by their like or dislike of the writer. This process takes a long time, especially if the reviewers suggest revisions and then want to see the manuscript again before they agree to publish the text. The amount of time that this takes, and the selectivity of reviewers means that some scholars have difficulty publishing their work, or cannot publish their work as quickly as they would like. They may be pressured because they have findings that they would like to be released immediately, or because their annual review requires that they have published a number of articles or books each year. These pressures have made desktop and e-publishing attractive to academics.

The need for peer review was made clear before many academic texts moved to e-publishing. Perhaps the most famous example is the Sokal hoax of 1996, in which a physics professor submitted an article for publication in the academic journal Social Text.The article was full of buzzwords and had little to no academic merit. It was not peer reviewed and was published quickly. The author, Sokal, then published a second article, this time in the academic journal Lingua Franca,which outlined the hoax he had perpetrated. While the Sokal hoax did not occur in an e-publishing format, it is the example that is frequently cited by scholars who examine issues of trust, peer review, and ethics regarding e-publishing. For example, Al-Khatib and da Silva (2016) are studying the ways that scientists are designing and using online tools to find future hoaxes before they are published, and the ways in which a past history of hoaxes and distrust has required the further development of such tools.

Desktop and e-publishing, however, can be done well and advance academic publication and research. For example, all research funded by the American National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation must be published online and made freely available to the public. This is referred to as "open access" because anyone, anywhere can access the publication without having to make a payment. Some communication journals, such as those published by the International Association for Media and Communication Research, have transitioned from a paper-based publication to an e-publication behind a pay wall, and then to an open access publication. This move toward open access publication has occurred for many reasons, including expanding publication to the public and to academics in countries that were previously not able to afford subscriptions to the printed or pay walled publication.

Academic desktop and e-publishing can also be done very poorly. Problems have emerged as the number of online journals rapidly expands. While older journals are attached to universities or publishing houses with long reputations, some new journals are organized by untraceable offices. These publications may charge academics to publish their work, whereas older journals typically publish research without a charge to the author. These "pay-to-publish" publications are sometimes labeled as predatory journals because they prey on academics that need to quickly publish to keep or secure their job. Clark and Smith's (2015) editorial regarding predatory journals outlines some of the ways in which this form of e-publishing harms academics and the advancement of science. Their reasons include the loss of important scientific findings because they are published in unproven or untrusted journals and the prohibitive costs which make it harder for academics from developing nations who cannot pay high rates for publication but need to publish to present their information to international audiences. In both ways, the publication structure has negatively affected academic institutions, researchers, and readers.

Academics are debating how to work and advance scholarship in this new mediascape. For example, many geographers were concerned in 2017 about the publication of a controversial article that seemed designed chiefly to gather clicks for the journal's webpage. This prompted ongoing discussions about the role of publication by academics and the public accessibility of journal articles, as well as less formal writing such as e-mail lists and social media posts (Finn, Peet, Mollett, and Lauermann, 2017).

Issues

Communications scholars and researchers are interested in the ways that desktop and e-publishing are affecting reading and communication in multiple public spheres. For example, do desktop and e-publishing make it possible for readers to find a wider diversity of texts? Or are readers continuing to focus on texts published by traditional publishing houses but now available in electronic formats?

Many textbooks have been made available in electronic formats, which enable students to carry all of their textbooks on a tablet, computer, or phone. This certainly makes packing for a day of classes easier, but academics are still researching if these electronic texts are as effective as paper publications. They ask if using electronic texts change the ways that students take notes, study, and pay attention to their assignments. Because these texts are relatively new, researchers are still working to determine what questions should be asked and how to measure student learning via electronic texts (Henrie, Halverson, and Graham, 2015). However, a study conducted at a midwestern US university indicated that most students were comfortable using e-textbooks. Only about 34 percent of students in the study did not want to use e-textbooks, mainly because of cost. The researchers suggest that educators, technology designers, and universities work together to make the use of e-textbooks more cost-effective (Chavali and Gundala, 2022).

Bibliography

Al-Khatib, A., & da Silva, J. A. T. (2016). Stings, hoaxes and irony breach the trust inherent in scientific publishing. Publishing Research Quarterly, 32(3), 208–219.

Ashuri, T. (2016). When online news was new. Journalism Studies, 17(3), 301–318. doi:10.1080/1461670X.2014.985064

Bell, Wayne. (2023, Apr. 21). Goal-oriented, results-driven success in digital publishing. Rolling Stone, www.rollingstone.com/culture-council/articles/goal-oriented-results-driven-success-digital-publishing-1234720655/

Chavali, K. & Gundala, R.R. (2022 Feb.). The textbook dilemma: digital or print? Evidence from a selected US university. TEM Journal, 11, (1), 242-48. doi.org/10.18421/TEM111-30

Clark, J., & Smith, R. (2015). Firm action needed on predatory journals. BMJ, 350(jan16‗1), h210.

Cox, D. (2018). Developing and raising awareness of the zine collections at the British Library. Art Libraries Journal, 43(2), 77–81.

Finn, J. C., Peet, R., Mollett, S., & Lauermann, J. (2017). Reclaiming value from academic labor: Commentary by the editors of Human Geography. Fennia-International Journal of Geography, 195(2), 182–184.

Henrie, C. R., Halverson, L. R., & Graham, C. R. (2015). Measuring student engagement in technology-mediated learning: A review. Computers & Education, 90, 36–53.

Luther, J., Farmer, F., & Parks, S. (2017). Special issue editors' introduction: The past, present, and future of self-publishing: Voices, genres, publics. Community Literacy Journal, 12, 1–4.

Newman, Nic. (2024, Jan. 9). Journalism, media and technology trends and predictions 2024. University of Oxford, reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/journalism-media-and-technology-trends-and-predictions-2024

Oral, A. E., & Güzeloğlu, E. B. (2017). Zines as an alternative media: An analysis on female zinsters in Turkey. Communication & Media Researches, 219.

Tandoc Jr, E. C., & Jenkins, J. (2017). The Buzzfeedication of journalism? How traditional news organizations are talking about a new entrant to the journalistic field will surprise you! Journalism, 18(4), 482–500.

Wilson, B. (2014). Innovators ignite revolution in desktop publishing and scholastic media. Communication: Journalism Education Today, 47(4), 3–17.