To people who have developed a passion for books, those containing papers-pages, and bound with two covers, are getting prepared for a threatening development. Days are not far when readers used to going through books by touching them, turning pages or keeping them folded with markers for some time will be replaced by online readers. These readers will be found as being glued to an online device ---ranging from a desktop, a laptop etc or a smart-phone. The online media screens will serve as the pages of a book. The highly smart and advanced devices are predicted to have virtual pages. To read these books one doesn't require a particular place. A reader can pick any spot, be it a shaded place under a tree, a seat inside a plane or a train, to go through them. Two to three decades ago, this forecast would have sounded as having been taken from a futuristic Orwellian fiction.
Tospeak curtly, books are set to disappear from the lives of the true readers. Few could be more disastrous as news to the book-lovers or bibliophiles. Notwithstanding the extent of shock created by the books being a non-entity, the days of books are numbered. Not long ago, the gossip about the eventual disappearance of the print media would occupy a centre-stageof informal get-togethers.Although the online communication had already carvedout a niche in the country's digital world, evenmany online-savvy people were seen brushing aside the atrocious idea: Newspapers' disappearance. They included those attuned to the latest innovations in the global online-related developments. These followers of the veritable brave new world would cite instances of the uninterrupted publication of the age-old printed newspapers. As they watched the latest developments in the international media, they would draw solace from the fact that the print media was quite hale and hearty in the developed countries.
By sticking to this view, they would try to exorcise themselves of the evil thoughts of Bangladesh media world going online wholesale. Ithas yet to happen. On the other hand, in many European and different developed countries, the newspaper managements shut down their print versions before they had gone online. Prestigious dailies in almost all large cities are now published online. Even many weekly news magazines, like Newsweek, have long stopped publishing their print versions. As the managements of the dailies and weeklies overseas view it, they cannot bear the expenses of the print versions. When it comes to online newspapers, the cost comes to one-third of the total.
An added benefit of going through the online newspapers --- they can be accessed almost free. Moreover, active social media outlets are now in a constant competition to break news earlier than the others. Besides, the popular overseas media channels hardly stay back in their efforts to keep the users of the online platforms updated. To the great relief of the print media barons and the newspaper readers, any large-scale transformation of the industry into the digital version is yet to emerge as a natural process. The chief reason behind it could be termed the general readers' aversion for online newspapers.
Unlike the case for books, the one for internet newspapers emerges as a raft of benefits. The new-generation book-lovers find online books and reading user-friendly. Apart from its 'non-weight' nature, one can now read the books anywhere in the world. The online book retailers like Amazon, BookOutlet, Walmart etc and the Bangladeshi Rokomari et al make books available to the readers. As feared, the older generation and those used to be in love with conventional books may come up to impede the online books' popularity. The message between the lines is quite irreversible. Since the younger generation has started taking tothe E-books, it might not be easy to turn them away from the fast strengthening trend. Yet it is too early to bid adieu to the books produced through a lengthy process. A vital point to ponder is the speedy availability of the work of a novelist, a current affairs specialist or the proponent of a new socio-economic order is of little importance. What counts here is the content of the E-book. If the book reaches the reader on time, he or she may be able to remain close to the subject they are interested in. However, the prerequisite is the sooner the better.
In case of newspapers and digital news platforms, and online editions of the print media, what'sadjudged the foremost of the priorities is speed. This mode of sending particular news stories to the readers in a speed faster than the rivals later proves a benefit of the digital news platforms. The digital news carriers, thus, are engaged in an ever fought-out battle. Conventional newspapers being greatly dependent on the production and printing processes, they can compromise on reaching information in a faster manner to the readers' end. They manage this by tagging analyses of various types to the main news items. Here the questions of skewed presentation of news and biases arise.
Honest digital news platforms remain above all kinds of biases. They remain careful about being sucked into any unnecessary controversy. Remaining above temptations of becoming a popular digital news outlet is a great challenge. Drawing the disapproval of the authorities by uploading sensitive news unwittingly, and by not realising the consequences, is not honest journalism. The average news portals have been proved ersatz. In the professional digital media and the online writing world, the temptations to overstep continue to invite hazards. Skewed dissent hasnever benefited society.
