The new science of the book represents a new scientific foreshortening, a fruit of interdisciplinary redefinition of the generally scientific object „book” in the light of fundamental and private sciences – the science of the communications, the media knowledge, the book knowledge, the bibliology, the information science, the semiology, the culture studies, the anthropology and of the private subjects – the media archeology, the media reception, the media psychology and the bibliopsychology. The aim of the study is building a complex knowledge of the scientific category „book“ in the context of media theory and the theory of the communications with a view to its functioning in the media system. The thesis of the study is that the book was the first invented media in the human history and it is indispensable center-positioned factor in the genesis, the present and the future of every civilization. The book is placed at the very foundation of the media pyramid and because in it is programmed the model of the mass communications, any subsequent media format is secondary toward it – it only diversifies and improves its immanent characteristics. By this logic the book as the oldest media will always be present in the spectrum of the new media.
The research is conducted through the mediological approach – with the scientific tools of the communication science, of the general theory of the communications and of the mediology. The source methodological principle in the proposed theory is that the book is twofold general scientific category – unity of content and form. The entire work is following the methodological postulate: book is only this object that has the characteristics of communication trinity: media content (text, information, story), media code (sign system, language) and construction on a durable media format (communication channel, media body, media format).
The monograph is composed in three parts by the principle of the subordination: first part – theory (terminology and laws), history and methodology of the book as media category – unity of content and form (the chapters 1-8); than these two components of the „book as medium“ are deployed separately in the second part – the book as media content/text/soul (the chapters 9-11) and in the third part – the book as media form/carrier/body (the chapters 12-17 to the end). Uniting the last two parts technics is the continuous examination (theoretical-empirical approbation) by the communication formula of „media“ = media content + media code + media carrier.
This edition contains the following reference apparatus: an appendix in table „SWOT analysis of the paper as medium”; the complete bibliography to the monograph of 870 cited and used sources; four indexes – of the personal names (1295 pcs), of the headings of the analyzed works (627 pcs), subject heading list (3092 key words) and geographical (362 objects); Summary in english and Cataloging in publication in english.
The monograph will be useful for researchers who focus their research interests toward:
• book as a medium
• books as godmaking media
• books archaeology and books evolution
• book intermediaries
• the dangerous and manipulative books
• book eroticism
• the end of e-books
• resurrecting paper-based books.