Chapter 4: Books: The Birth of the Mass Media
Summary and Learning Objectives
Early forms of writing first appeared in the Middle East about 3,500 BC. Over the next 2,000 years,
writing evolved from simple pictographs to highly developed ideograms and the sound-based
alphabet system. Modern rag-based paper was developed in China between 240 BC and 105 BC. In
medieval Western Europe, early hand-copied books were created primarily by monks and other
religious figures. Because they were difficult to produce, these books were expensive and rare.
and retail business.
Publishers produce a wide range of books, but most of the industry’s profits come from a limited
number of best-selling titles from authors such as Margaret Atwood and Stephen King. Young adult
authors such as J. K. Rowling, John Green, and Veronica Roth have been extremely popular and have
dominated the best-seller lists in recent years. The textbook industry has come under increased
scrutiny by both legislators and consumers for high costs. Responses have included textbook rental,
electronic editions, and lowered costs of production.
Although books rarely attract the degree of controversy that movies, television, or video games do,
they are occasionally challenged in the United States, typically by an individual library or school
district. The most common reason for restricting books is that they contain offensive language,
racial bias or stereotypes, sexual material, or offensive comments about religion. Outside of the
United States, some controversial authors have faced threats of violence or even death, most
notably Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. Such bans and threats almost never prevent
the books from being sold, however.
The Internet has become an important marketplace for books, especially those for which demand is
limited. Online bookstores such as Amazon.com can keep books available by selling them as digital
downloads or as print-on-demand titles. E-book readers are becoming increasingly popular as a
means of distributing books, especially textbooks.
After studying this chapter, you will be able to:
1. Discuss the development of the book from the earliest pictographs to mass-produced
publications.
2. Describe two major cultural changes that took place with the development of the type mold
and printing press.
3. Explain the functions of each of the three major players in the book publishing and
distribution business.
4. Discuss the tension between “popular” books and “great” books.
5. Describe three ways in which the long tail is transforming the book business.
Review Questions
1. How and why does young adult author John Green deal with mental illness in his novels.
2. How do ideographs and phonetic alphabets differ from each other? What are advantages and
disadvantages of phonetic alphabets?
3. How did the development of movable type transform the book publishing industry?
4. How does a publisher differ from a printer?
5. Are books often banned successfully in the United States? Why or why not? Defend your
answer.
6. Aside from not involving paper, how do e-books differ from conventional books?
Media Literacy Exercises
Best-Seller Lists
Among the most important of the best-seller lists are those published by the New York Times and
USA Today. The USA Today best-seller list differs from other best-seller lists because it includes
fiction and nonfiction, paperback and hardback books in a single list. Also, the USA Today list
attempts to mirror the actual sales of books nationwide rather than those reported by a select
group of bookstores like those that report to the New York Times. Compare and contrast the USA
Today and New York Times best-seller lists. How is each structured? What can you discover about
To earn a grade of B, students should answer the basic questions. Most likely you would have them
compare and contrast the top ten books on each list.
• To earn a grade of A, students should recognize that the top best-selling hardback novels
may be relatively far down on the USA Today list, which combines fiction, nonfiction,
paperback, and hardback all on one list.
• To earn a grade of C, students will compare the books on the lists without significant
observations about the book business.
What Are You Reading?
What is the book you have read most recently that wasn’t assigned to you by a teacher? Why did
you choose it? Did you like the book? Why or why not? Was it on the best-seller lists? Can you
explain why?
The Literary Equivalent of a Big Mac and a Large Fries
A reader survey sponsored by the publishing industry showed that if people found themselves
stranded on a desert island, their first choice in books would be the Bible. Their second choice?
King dismisses the separation between serious literature and popular fiction, saying that:
there must be a good story to go with good writing: “So-called literary critics who
praise gorgeous writing without a story are like some guy dating a model, saying
she’s dumb as a stone boat, but is great to look at.”
2
1
Minzesheimer B. (1995). Hit no. 35 could be in the bag. USA Today, September 17, D1–2.
2
Ibid.
Despite making no claims to being a literary writer, King was honored in 2003 when he was
given the National Book Award for his contribution to American writing. The award was
controversial because King has been considered a popular writer rather than a serious one. In his
acceptance speech, King said he hoped his being honored would help bridge the gap between the
two. “For far too long the so-called popular writers of this country and the so-called literary
writers have stared at each other with animosity and a willful lack of understanding . . . But
giving an award like this to a guy like me suggests that in the future things don’t have to be the
way they’ve always been. Bridges can be built between the so-called popular fiction and the so-
called literary fiction.”
3
King’s selection for the National Book Award didn’t end up being an isolated incident. Popular
children’s writer Judy Blume won the following year.
Read King’s acceptance speech for the National Book Award using this link:
http://www.nationalbook.org/tag/stephen-king/
(Note: This is to a page that clearly not being maintained, but for the moment it still does have the
text of his speech on it.)
Here is a C-SPAN video of his speech, along with other speakers at the National Book Award
ceremony. If you want to jump ahead to King’s remarks, go to 16:19.
• https://www.c-span.org/video/?179258-1/2003-national-book-awards-ceremony
Suggested Readings
• Winchester, S. (1998). The Professor and the Madman. New York: Harper Collins. Is writing a
dictionary sexy? One of the biggest contributors to the dictionary was a homicidal lunatic
doctor who wrote all his contributions from his room in an insane asylum. You can read the
complete story in The Professor and the Madman.
• King, S. (2000). On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. New York: Scribner. The master of horror
provides a brief memoir of childhood and his battle with drugs and alcohol, along with a
discussion of good writing technique.
• Lamb, B. (1997). Booknotes: America’s Finest Authors on Reading, Writing, and the Power of
Ideas. New York: Times Books. An anthology of interviews from the C-SPAN book interview
program of the same name.
• All of the Chapter 4 links posted to my RalphEHanson.com blog
3
King, S. (2003). National Book Award acceptance speech. National Book Foundation.Retrieved from
www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_sking.html
http://www.ralphehanson.com/category/chapter-4/
Lecture Builders
Ta–Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates had a pretty good year in 2015. His best-selling memoir Between the World and Me
won the National Book Award. He won one of the MacArthur Foundation’s US$650,000 “genius
grants.” He is a national correspondent for the Atlantic, one of the leading political and news
journals in the United States.
So after having a year like that, what did he do? He lived up to one of his life ambitions to write a
comic book series for Marvel. Not quite what you were expecting from one of the leading African
American public intellectuals, was it?
As this is being written, Coates is working on an 11 comic series of Black Panther comics for Marvel,
collaborating with artist Brian Stelfreeze. The series, Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, tells
the story of T’Challa, the king of the technologically and socially advanced nation of Wakanda,
which is nevertheless still an absolute monarchy. T’Challa’s alter ego is the superhero Black
Panther, who is fighting to keep Wakanda safe as it is being attacked by terrorists. (In case you are
“What’s the good of getting a MacArthur genius grant if you can’t go and write a comic book for
Marvel? I don’t know. There are things that people consider to be genius, and there are things that
deep in my heart I’ve always believed to be genius.”
ii
One of the rewarding challenges for Coates about working on comics has been collaborating with
artist Stelfreeze. How Black Panther’s Vibranium suit behaves and the functions of a bracelet worn
by all citizens from Wakanda were all created by Stelfreeze. “That’s a kind of synergy that doesn’t
exist when you’re writing a book and doesn’t exist too much when you’re writing an article,” Coates
told Wired magazine. (Vibranium is the super element that Captain America’s shield is made from.
But you knew that.)
iii
To Coates, diversity is as important in comics as it is anywhere else in society. He tells NPR, “I think
diversity is a storytelling imperative. If you’re not at least grappling with diversity, then you’re not
depicting the world. And while the world of comic books is not literally the true world, why would
there not be gay superheroes? Why not? . . . Why would there not be black superheroes? Why would
there not be Asian American superheroes? If this is our mythology, why would our mythology only
be straight, white males? What is actually going on there?”
iv
Of course, Black Panther isn’t the only black character in the Marvel Universe—there’s Storm from
the X-Men; Nick Fury, who runs the Avengers in the Marvel movie series; and Falcon and War
Machine; but none of them have moved to the forefront of starring in a movie, though I would argue
that Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury is a pretty big deal. Black Panther is scheduled to be headlining
his own move in 2018, and was a supporting character in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War.
v
Being the voice of young Black America (Coates is about forty years old) is not an easy
While Coates writes about serious race and justice issues in his comics, he also keeps in mind that
he’s writing for Marvel, so along with looking at racial identity, Black Panther also has to cope with
“supervillians with cool powers.”
vi
“What’s important is that people write great stories, and that’s
ultimately what’s important,” Coates says. “It does no good to make Spider-Man Black or Thor a
woman if the comic books are gonna suck. That does no good at all.”
vii
Media Activities
Books as a Changing Medium
Read the following:
• It is apparent that books as a medium are going through a rapid period of change right now,
but this is not the first time this has happened. Last year The Atlantic‘s website ran an
excellent article looking at 10 revolutions that have taken place in reading (and hence with
books) over the last couple of millenniums. (I also have a blog post you can read on the
subject.)
• The biggest change taking place right now is the enormous growth in the sale of e-books
and e-book readers. According to Gigaom, the U.S. consumer e-book market will be bigger
than the print book market by 2017, and Amazon.com notes that the online bookstore now
sells more Kindle-formatted e-books than hardbacks and paperbacks combined.
• The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein talks about the advantages and disadvantages traditional
books have over electronic books.
Questions:
• How is the book industry changing in the 21st century? What is new about it? What is the
same? How are the changes that are taking place now different or similar to those that have
taken place in the past? Be specific, arguing with examples from your readings.
• Are e-books significantly different than books printed on paper? If they are different, what
makes e-books different? (Think about both the physical differences and the cultural and
business differences. Again, be specific with examples.)
• Have you used an e-book? Do you own a Kindle, Nook, or use e-book software on your
computer or tablet? What do you think of the experience?
Classroom Debate on Secret One: Influential Books
Are books more influential than television or movies? Why do you think so? Which medium has
caused more change and turmoil in the world?
Notes: Although movies, television programming, and CDs attract the most attention when it comes
to concerns about media effects, there is a reasonable argument to be made that books have a much
bigger influence on people. The Bible, the Koran, and the Torah (scriptures for the Christian,
Muslim, and Jewish faiths) would have to rank very high on the list of most influential media
content of all time.
Classroom Debate on Secret Six: Banned Books
Should parents be able to get books banned from schools because they find ideas or language in
them objectionable? Why or why not?
Notes: For up-to-date information on book banning in the United States, visit the American Library
Association’s Banned Book Week website:
• http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks
The site outlines the most frequently challenged books, offers help with dealing with challenges,
and information about the la on banning or challenging books.
This can be the launching ground for either an in-class discussion or an out-of-class writing
assignment.
As I mention in the textbook, it should be remembered that most attempts to challenge a title in the
United States result in it being removed from a library or a required reading list. The “banned book”
is typically still available within the community, though not with the ease that it was before.
i
Mark Yarm, “Ta-Nehisi Coates Fights the Power—Literally—With Black Panther,” Wired, April
6, 2016, http://www.wired.com/2016/04/ta-nehisi-coates-black-panther-comics/; NPR Staff, “Ta–
Nehisi Coates Hopes ‘Black Panther’ Will Be Some Kid’s ‘Spider Man,’” NPR, April 6, 2016,
