Out of the very wide range of diverse issues discussed in the second ‘real’ symposium style lecture, two stood out to me: the idea of published work only being validated once it is viewed by others, and the ‘death’ of the physical book.

The question the interested me was: “Is the work we publish online only validated once it is viewed/consumed by others?”. I completely agree with how a lot of the lecturers answers this one, mainly that it is the fact that our writing has a possible audience that has an influence on the writing process, rather than if people actually read it. The fact that I’m writing this with the real possibility of at least one person seeing it means that I’m writing it in a different way than if I was just jotting down my thoughts on the lecture in a personal diary.

We know that the work we publish online is viewable to anyone, and this alters the way we write and the content of what we write. I don’t think people need to actually consume the work for it to be validated, the very fact that we published it means that it’s validated, at least to us.

I also liked the physical analogy, in that blogs technically don’t exist until someone clicks on it, and chooses to view it, and as Adrian said, if we write for an imagined audience, and write well, that imagined audience will become real.

I also found the discussion on the physical book vs e-reader a very relevant one. I’m one of those people that may not ever get used to reading for pleasure on a tablet or the like. I find it weird to read and annoying to not get the satisfication of turning the page, or checking to see how far you’ve come.

In contrast to this however, in the very near future I see none of my university books being physical copies. Even right now, only one of my four subjects as an actual textbooks, all the rest are online, and this makes every single aspect of this easier and more efficient.

Physical books still have a place close to my heart, but not in terms of my studies.