Adapting classic books for modern media formats
Smartphones, smart watches, smart TVs – everything is adapting to the digital age. But how can books become more modern?
A study project by Joelle Wörtche and Melanie Molata
1st semester, 2020
Supervising lecturers: Prof. Dr Peter Schuhmacher, Prof. Dr Thomas Pleil
Initial situation
An ageing society is bringing the issue of care ever closer to home. Even though life is becoming more digital, faster and easier, conditions such as dementia remain a long-standing issue. Dementia, in particular, is presenting our society with new challenges. According to statistics from the German Alzheimer’s Society, there are currently around 1.7 million people in Germany living with dementia. However, it is not only those suffering from dementia who are affected, but also those around them, including young adults – the ‘grandchildren’s generation’. It is certainly a topic that many have probably already encountered. It is therefore important to make this topic more accessible to young adults through multimedia interactions in a non-fiction book. We aim to combine the traditional printed book with the features of the e-book and the possibilities offered by the digital age, thereby creating a concept for a new, sustainable book that brings together media, technology and society. The question is: how can we design a concept for a contemporary non-fiction book aimed at this target group that combines aspects of media, technology and society? Through the multimedia element, it should be possible to explore topics that have not previously been a focus for young adults. We can convey the message on several levels and create an emotional added value that reading alone cannot provide.
The idea
With the help of expert interviews, we aim to gain insider knowledge. To this end, we conducted interviews with a publisher, a media developer/journalist and an author, asking them which book trends are currently popular and what developments they foresee in books in terms of multimedia. Furthermore, we asked them what kind of technology and media are needed to make a book more unique and to enhance the emotional experience of reading it.
Furthermore, we will gather the wishes and ideas of our target group via a survey and then incorporate the results into our concept. For our interviews, we sought out a book publisher specialising in our target group and, if possible, a non-fiction author specialising in medical topics. To this end, we envisaged, for example, a video conference during which the interview would be recorded.
For the concept, we are still seeking out key literature on print and e-books, amongst other things. We also plan to review existing print and e-book models and compile an overview of them. In addition, we will research some best-practice examples relating to interactive literature and, of course, delve into our topic of dementia. At the start of our research, we defined and narrowed down our research question in terms of book genre, target audience and publisher. For our research, we opted for a non-fiction book aimed at young adults aged 14–29 – the so-called ‘Generation Z’ – published by a suitable non-fiction publisher.
We selected two methods to address the question of a suitable research approach: expert interviews and a target group survey. When identifying suitable interviewees, we aimed to cover all perspectives – a user of such a concept, an author, a publisher and our target group.
User: Mr Pranz, who has carried out a similar project himself.
Author: who has written a book with a young influencer
Publishing house: a modern non-fiction publisher specialising in trends.
The outcome
Our research project includes a concept for a modern book and a prototype for the illustrations. So far, our interviews have shown that digitalisation creates new possibilities for making a book modern and multi-layered. Integrated QR codes, Augmented Reality (AR) and small add-ons are possibilities that were mentioned in the interviews. At present, the market is still relatively small, as the use of, for example, Augmented Reality requires a dedicated app, and the costs would be too high given the low demand. However, QR codes are frequently used in books to link to external websites. In short: everything is converging in some way, and therefore the demand for modern, contemporary books could increase. Our target audience survey is currently underway and, once completed, we will be able to incorporate the requirements and wishes of our target audience into our concept. In addition, we would also like to create a requirements catalogue using the Miro programme and visualise one page of the book for the concept, for example using Canva.