| Summary: | The name of the thesis is “Is the printed book’s death the authors bread? – A study in how the publishing houses’ and the authors’ relationships change due to the introduction of the e--‐book” The e--‐book, which is a digital copy of the printed book, has been on the market for over two decades. However, it is not until now that changes are happening within the industry, which affects the different actors. Amazon has for example launched an e--‐reader by the name Kindle on the market and Apple has launched a surfpad by the name iPad, both which you are able to read e--‐books on. The technological changes that are happening affect the actors within the book industry as well as the structure of the industry. The research question of this thesis is “ow do the publishing houses’and the authors’relationships within the book industry change due to the introduction of the e--‐book?” Actor--‐network theory is used to investigate this. The theory includes both human and non--‐human actors, which together can create a network. The actors within the network connect themselves to each other and thereby form the network. The purpose of this thesis is to create an understanding for how actors and their relationships within an established industry structure are affected by digitalisation. To achieve this, semi--‐structured interviews were conducted with publishing houses and authors. The boom of the e--‐book in large part depends upon the technical development that has occurred and which has introduced smartphones, e--‐readers, surfpads etcetera on the market. More actors will arise in the book industry due to the digitalisation, which in turn will affect the existing relationships of the publishing houses and the authors. The publishing houses will keep their role in the networks as a key player, but come into contact with more actors. The authors are given the chance to self--‐publish their books as e--‐books, which make them come into contact with more actors as well. As more actors arise, the structure within the industry becomes relaxed. Hence, the publishing houses need to enrol the new actors in order for them to keep their position in the network.
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