Takumi Sato

The diffusion of electronic books, as digital texts lacking in physical presence, urges the redefinition of "books". However, books had already performed a substantial transformation even before the emergence of electronic books. From the perspective of comparative media theory, this paper discusses the transformation of books in the eras of the start of radio broadcasting in the 1920s as well as paperback revolution in the 1930s. This transformation is the genealogy of "shift of books to radio/magazines" or "shift of books to advertising media". As the final stage of such "shift of books to media", the library project by Google has hit the scene. This paper points out the necessity of classifying the problems which "digitalization of books" has posed under communication situation in the Web 2.0 age, and finally associating electronic books with the literacy of existing books.