Do you want to stay informed about this journal? Click the buttons to subscribe to our alerts.
Abstract
An anthropological view of the publishing industry sees it as a culture with its own assumptions and patterns, in which publishing companies are macro-communities associated with micro-communities of readers. Anthropology sees ‘digital culture’ in a comparable way. Awareness of the cultural characteristics of publishing as a culture and of digital culture can turn their differences into synergies that benefit both. Examples from anthropological research and from publishing show that some processes are comparable. One is the process in which material value is transformed into cultural value, with the benefit of increasing the cohesion of a community. Another occurs when communities interlink their cultural processes in cultural–commercial ecosystems, to mutual benefit. Anthropological insights suggest how strategies, at project level and at the level of international cooperation, can bridge the cultural divide between traditional publishing values and digital opportunities and so help businesses survive and succeed in times of change.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Bateson, G., 1936. Naven: A survey of the problems suggested by a composite picture of the culture of a New Guinea Tribe drawn from three points of view (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
-
Benedict, R., 1934. Patterns of Culture (Boston: Houghton Mifflin).
-
Bestor, T. C., 2001. ‘Markets: Anthropological aspects’, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, ed. N. J. Smelser and P. B. Baltes, pp. 9227–9231 (Amsterdam: Elsevier Science).
-
Bregman, R., 2020. Humankind: A hopeful history, trans. E. Manton and E. Moore (London: Bloomsbury).
-
Diamond, J., 2012. The World until Yesterday (New York: Viking Penguin).
-
Heinrich, J., Heine, S., and Norenzayan, A., 2010. ‘Most People Are Not Weird’, Nature, 466 (29).
-
Larsen, D. and Watson, J., 2001. ‘A Guide Map to the Terrain of Gift Value’, Psychology and Marketing, 18 (8), pp. 889–890.
-
Lawman, R. D. and Williams, K., 2019. I Want to Leave This Book! (Manchester: WatAdventure).
-
Lawman, R. D. and Williams, K., 2020. This Book Is On Fire! (Manchester: WatAdventure).
-
Malinowski, B., 1922. Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An account of native enterprise and adventure in the archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).
-
Mathiesson, P., 1962. Under the Mountain Wall (New York: Viking Press).
-
Mauss, M., 1925. Essai sur le don: Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques (Paris: L’Année Sociologique).
-
Mauss, M., 2016. Essay on the Gift: Forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies, trans. J. I. Guyer (Chicago: Hau Books).
-
Mead, M., 1928. Coming of Age in Samoa (New York: William Morrow).
-
Mead, M., 1935. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies.
-
Phillips, A., 2014. Turning the Page: The evolution of the book (Abingdon: Routledge).
-
Robinson, H., 2012. ‘Digital Publishing’, Logos, 23 (4), pp. 7–20.
-
Snow, C. P., 1963. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
-
Weiner, A., 1976. Women of Value, Men of Renown: New perspectives in Trobriand exchange (Austin: University of Texas Press).
-
Williamson, P. and de Meyer, A., 2020. Ecosystem Edge: Sustaining competitiveness in the face of disruption (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 351 | 87 | 18 |
| Full Text Views | 96 | 28 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 226 | 73 | 9 |
Abstract
An anthropological view of the publishing industry sees it as a culture with its own assumptions and patterns, in which publishing companies are macro-communities associated with micro-communities of readers. Anthropology sees ‘digital culture’ in a comparable way. Awareness of the cultural characteristics of publishing as a culture and of digital culture can turn their differences into synergies that benefit both. Examples from anthropological research and from publishing show that some processes are comparable. One is the process in which material value is transformed into cultural value, with the benefit of increasing the cohesion of a community. Another occurs when communities interlink their cultural processes in cultural–commercial ecosystems, to mutual benefit. Anthropological insights suggest how strategies, at project level and at the level of international cooperation, can bridge the cultural divide between traditional publishing values and digital opportunities and so help businesses survive and succeed in times of change.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 351 | 87 | 18 |
| Full Text Views | 96 | 28 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 226 | 73 | 9 |