Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2015 number

The article aims at understanding the changes associated with modernization of the Russian book industry that not only transformed the institutions, their structure and competitiveness, but also led to the emergence of a new virtual book communication environment. The author applied the formal-logical and comparative-historical research methods which allowed the identification of causal chains in studying the evolution of electronic resources of the book industry in relation to logic and specificity of publishing business’ modernization in Russia at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. Transformation of data-communication networks contributed to the development of the Russian book industry’s digital communication segment. The emergence and spread of digital media has formed a special communication environment while creating the new forms of social communication: electronic publication - e-book, e-content, social media promoting books etc. Nowadays digitization and convergence of information processes determine the direction and nature of book communication. In the virtual space book communication has been developed due to the expansion of the Internet audience and emergence of the online sales offices created both by the subjects of book business (publishers, booksellers) and by the online media (non-book) organizations. Modernization of book industry along with the growing number of Internet users, development of online commerce, decline in book production and traditional book distribution business contribute to the stable growth and development of e-book market in Russia. Publishing houses find new ways of delivering digital content to end users through various sales channels - from their own web-sites, specialized online stores, aggregators of electronic resources to book-related social media and special applications for mobile devices. Following the global digital content market the domestic e-book market also shows steady growth dynamics. Numerous literature portals, forums, websites and blogs being the new phenomena of the modern book culture and elements of the virtual space allow developing dialogic, interactive, individual and personal relationship with readers, users, and buyers. Existing book-related social networks provide their users with a full range of options: compiling lists of books they have read; writing reviews; receiving notifications of the new reviews in the editions being monitored; information about new products, advertising, promotion of reading, and more. All of these books online platforms serve as a specific communication medium for the actors in the book market. Despite the fact that the domestic digital book market is only emerging, electronic publishing and distribution are a promising direction, significantly transforming the modern book industry. A wide range of opportunities for the use of various virtual resources of the book market becomes a real factor of the book industry’s integration in the global virtual communication space. In general, electronic communications of the domestic book industry have become an integral part of the ongoing process of modernization of Russian book industry.