Hamlet’s Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal

Submitted by: The Two Sides Team September 2, 2010

This well researched study on the role that print and paper media will play in a multi media world is definitely worth reading.

William Powers, Media Critic, National Journal, Shorenstein Fellow, Harvard University, examines the future prospects for paper. Fall 2006

Extract:

“Though paper appears to be a relatively dumb medium, it performs tasks that require special abilities. And many of paper’s tricks, the useful purposes it serves, are similarly products of its long relationship with people. There are cognitive, cultural and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-it note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve or store information. Paper does these jobs in a way that pleases us, which is why, for centuries, we have liked having it around. It’s also why we will never give it up as a medium, not completely. For some of the roles paper currently fulfils in our media lives, there is no better alternative currently available. And the most promising candidates are technologies that are striving to be more, not less, like paper. Indeed, the pertinent question may be not whether the old medium will survive, but whether the new ones will ever escape paper’s enormous shadow.”

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