Over the course of several centuries, the printed book has evolved into a medium which can facilitate deep and attentive reading in a highly productive manner. This ability results to a large... Show moreOver the course of several centuries, the printed book has evolved into a medium which can facilitate deep and attentive reading in a highly productive manner. This ability results to a large extent from specific material properties of paper-based books. As few of these properties can be replicated effectively on digital devices, the transition to screen-based texts invariably leads to different forms of reading. While the immateriality of digital books may affect our capacity to concentrate on texts and to remember their contents, the plasticity and the computability of digital words simultaneously engender innovative ways of engaging with books. Show less
Salgaro, Massimo; Sorrentino, Pasqualina; Lauer, Gerhard; Jacobs, Arthur M. 2018
Starting from Walter Benjamin’s definition of aura as an ‘effect of a work of art being uniquely present in time and space’, the objective of this study is to test whether paper books and e-books... Show moreStarting from Walter Benjamin’s definition of aura as an ‘effect of a work of art being uniquely present in time and space’, the objective of this study is to test whether paper books and e-books have different kinds of “aura” and if so, whether the perception of the aura influences the evaluation of the literary texts within a book and an e-book. 59 subjects read four texts from two different genres (short stories and poems) on two different devices (antique book and Kindle). To determine the effect of aura we developed a questionnaire to measure the evaluation of the literary quality by readers. Results show different attributions of literary value depending on the reading device and on the genre of the text. Despite the study’s limitations, these findings support the notion that the context, i.e. the preconceptions of the readers towards a certain medium of reading, plays a determinant role in the attribution of literary value. Show less
