Publishing Industry

In the world now, there are plenty of search engines in the internet. People all around the world tends to share out their articles, journals, online books, newspaper and other publications. This has been a major concern for the publishing industry. According to Robinson (2012), ‘book sales are stagnating, profit margins are being squeezed by higher discounts and falling prices and the distribution of book buyers is ever more polarized… etc’. This evidence shows that it will give a huge impact to the publishing industry.

In a blog written by Picard (2012), he has declared that there is a reduced in the number of newspaper production to the response of the market changes and economic conditions. Therefore, some of the newspaper publication has actually changed their days in publishing. With this decision, the publication company actually publishes their digital publications and producing the papers only on the days where the advertisers have interest in. This will also help to have a better financial view for the company.

The theory of multimodality can be applied in this situation. According to Kress and van Leeuwen (1998), multimodality theory applied ‘as the use of several semiotic modes in the design of a semiotic product or event, together with the particular way in which these modes are combined’. So this theory will help the publication company to actually attain the customers by attracting them with the use of images and designs. According to Laja (2012), images will grab the attention of the readers rather than only having a load of words on the publication.

Editors carry a high responsibility in the publication industry. If the editors came out with a bad publication, this might lead to the leakage of customers. Customers will just flip over or not even bother to start reading it as they already have a negative perception towards the publication. Written by Edwards (2009), he said that ‘bad editors are not only bad for morale; they’re bad for business’. To conclude, multimodality theory needs to be applying to grasp the attention of readers as well as editors play a high responsibility in the publishing industry.

Reference List

Edward L 2009, ‘Content Creation FAQs’, blogspot.com, viewed on 03 November 2012, <http://laurenedwardssv.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-cope-with-bad-editors-who-are.html>.

Kress G and van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front Pages: (The Critical) Analysis of Newspaper Layout’, Ch.7, pp 186-219, Blackwell, Oxford 

Laja P 2012, ‘8 Things that grab and hold website visitor’s attention’, ConversionXL, viewed on 03 November 2012, <http://conversionxl.com/how-to-grab-and-hold-attention/>.

Picard RG 2012, ‘The Media Business’, blogspot.com, viewed on 03 November 2012, <http://themediabusiness.blogspot.com/>.

Robinson C 2012, ‘Ten Ways to save the publishing industry’ Guardian.co.uk, viewed on 03 November 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/12/ten-ways-to-save-publishing-industry>.