Book News: Some alternatives to “big media”
So rather than going into a deep dive into the many problems in new media industries and news, for this week’s book news assignment I figured I’d kind of not actually quite follow the assignment and just throw some options out for publishing alternatives to the conglomerates and chains and monster media corporations.
I’d like to first introduce you to Taproot Edmonton, a local-to-Edmonton grassroots news site and flagship publication of Taproot Publishing, a company that sees “a future in which communities are served by sustainably funded acts of journalism facilitated by technology” (Taproot Publishing, 2020). As a bit of a link back to last week’s news post, one of the current features is an article about AI, ChatGPT, and some of its impact local to Edmonton.
Second, I just want to give a shout out to open access journals, for example the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada / Cahiers de la Société bibliographique du Canada, which are directly accessible via its website as well as through the CRKN Open Access Journals List as well as Érudit, a Canadian not-for-profit interuniversity consortium running on an open digital infrastructure: “We wish to shift the power dynamic in the realm of scholarly communication and to relieve the pressure exerted by the major for-profit publishers on libraries, among others” (Érudit, 2023).
Lastly, something a bit more commercial but that also supports independent bookstores and as such a more diverse publishing ecosystem overall. If you or anyone you know enjoys audiobooks, I encourage you to look into and/or pass along a recommendation for libro.fm as an alternative to that other audiobook vendor. As they say on their story page, libro.fm “makes it possible for you to buy audiobooks through your local bookstore, giving you the power to keep money within your local economy, create jobs, and make a difference in your community” (2023). They are a ‘social purpose corporation’ which “employs a hybrid approach to growth and profit, incorporating elements of traditional for-profit business and nonprofit organization. An SPC is able to pursue both social and financial goals in the for-profit context, even if those social goals may at times conflict with the corporation’s financial interest or shareholders’ financial interests” (libro.fm, 2023).
And, okay, one actual news article, an opinion piece arguing that “Canada's newspapers are being plundered by monopoly capitalism” (Elliott, 2023). To which I just say, yeah, what she said…
Happy exploring some alternative publishing and media!
– Winston
Works Cited
The Bibliographical Society of Canada / la Société bibliographique du Canada. (2023). Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada / Cahiers de la Société bibliographique du Canada. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/bsc/
Elliott, Patricia W. (2023, January 30). Canada's newspapers are being plundered by monopoly capitalism. CBC News [website]. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/opinion-patricia-elliott-newspapers-1.6727415
Érudit. (2023). Why Érudit? Érudit [website]. https://apropos.erudit.org/pourquoi-erudit/?lang=en
libro.fm. (2023). libro.fm [website]. https://libro.fm/
Taproot Edmonton. (2023). About Taproot Edmonton. Taproot Edmonton [website]. https://edmonton.taproot.news/about
Taproot Publishing. (2020). Taproot Publishing [website]. https://www.taprootpublishing.ca/
Unland, Karen. (2023, January 26). Commercializing AI about more than tech transfer, Amii execs say. Taproot Edmonton. https://edmonton.taproot.news/news/2023/01/26/commercializing-ai-about-more-than-tech-transfer-amii-execs-say
