I maintain that Late Age of Print is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the print media, media ecology, or media studies in general.
Striphas investigates the everydayness of books that he claims is intimately bound with: "a changed and changing mode of production; new technological products and processes; shifts in law and jurisprudence; the proliferation of culture and the rise of cultural politics; and a host of sociological transformations" (5). His main argument is that books had been integral to the making of modern consumer culture in the 20th century, as they were one of the first commercial Christmas presents, and today are responsible in part for the fall of that consumer capitalism into a society of controlled consumption, a term that he borrows from Henri Lefebvre. He convincingly shows that book publishing pioneered the rationalization and standardization of mass-production techniques in that the massive quantities of book production required efficient production processes and the move toward an hourly wage. Ultimately, The Late Age of Print investigates how books have become ubiquitous social artifacts entrenched with the everyday. His book successfully proves that book circulation is, and has always been, a political act because the circulation of books embody specific values, practices, interests, and worldviews (13). And as such, the practice of circulating books embody struggles over particular ways of life.
What does this mean for the late age of print (a term coined by Jay David Bolter to characterize the current dynamic era of book history instigated by media convergence where books remain central to shaping dominant and emergent ways of life)? Well, for some, like Sven Birkerts, author of Gutenberg Elegies, this is a crisis, a decline in the quantity (and the quality) of literature being read and it poses a real threat to culture in general.
Striphas explains (and I agree) that this is not a crisis in which familiar aspects of book culture is nearing its end, but rather, late age of print is a dynamic and open-ended era characterized by both permanence and change (175). He cites Elizabeth Eisenstein who contends that those who claim the end of print culture tend to do so by reinforcing modes of thought, conduct, and expression long associated with printed books.
In other words, indeed, this is a political act. It is the old way of life that is being threatened here. And by this I don't just mean how we read, or that one type of textuality is appreciated over others or one type of work (printed books) is valued over others (blogs, videogames, virtual worlds). Explaining that to consume isn't simply to use up, but to make do in unique and unexpected ways, Striphas focuses on how some of the defining attributes of consumer capitalism have been challenged by the emergence of a society of controlled consumption during the late age of print. While he discusses some of the creative ways in which consumers manage to appropriate (or make do) certain books (such as the Harry Potter franchise whose books leaked to the public despite the contractual agreement that the distributors had to agree), his book mainly focuses on how the society of controlled consumption plays out.
So even though the consumers are given leeway to "make do" or appropriate the works that are being released, they are highly regulated or controlled. The boundaries of consumer initiated anything is strictly defined, though sometimes these boundaries are violated by eager consumers who figure out creatively how to trespass the enforced limitations. For example, although Agrippa was programmed to self-erase, the work was successfully hacked and its contents were posted online. But that didn't mean that the work was experienced as it was meant to be experienced. In other words, the materiality of the work had been altered...
The long and short of it is, is that on The Late Age of Print is a very useful contribution to the media field. The best part? It's easy to read. And relevant to the experiences you have had...
