Overarching Question: How has the practice of book burning changed from the 20th – 21st century?
What are the new practices of book censorship in the digital environment? Are these methods more or less effective compared with physical burning?
Will the practice of physically burning books cease to exist in the Digital Age?
Contribution to the Topic and Methodology
This website provides a starting point for professional and scholary debate regarding the existence and practice of book burning/censorship in a digitally-saturated society.
Once research for this topic began, it was clear there is a need for this type of inquiry. Book burning in the 20th century was well-researched and documented by various types of sources. Conversely, serious studies on this type of censorship in the Digital Age seemed incomplete. A major challenge I experienced was the lack of scholarly articles regarding the "burning" of digital works. Granted, biblioclasts are not rushing out to literally burn piles of Kindles. However, the lack of scholarly inquiry into the nature and practice of digital censorship was noticeably lacking.
In addition to secondary sources such as books and journal articles, I relied on primary sources such as newspaper articles (Chronicling America Website from the Library of Congress) and film footage to examine instances of book burning in the 20th century. This approach did not work so well for my exploration of the topic during the 21st century, however. Many of the newspaper databases required a subscription and I was unable to search for specific known incidents or could not get the full article. For more recent acts of book burning, I unfortunately had to rely more heavily on news websites and non-academic resources.
To complete the project, I referred to my initial research questions and analyzed the primary and secondary sources gathered in order to recognize similarities and differences between book burning approaches and effectiveness. The absence of helpful studies in this area reinforced the revelation that a project such as this would contribute to an understanding of the topic.
What are the new practices of book censorship in the digital environment? Are these methods more or less effective compared with physical burning?
Will the practice of physically burning books cease to exist in the Digital Age?
Contribution to the Topic and Methodology
This website provides a starting point for professional and scholary debate regarding the existence and practice of book burning/censorship in a digitally-saturated society.
Once research for this topic began, it was clear there is a need for this type of inquiry. Book burning in the 20th century was well-researched and documented by various types of sources. Conversely, serious studies on this type of censorship in the Digital Age seemed incomplete. A major challenge I experienced was the lack of scholarly articles regarding the "burning" of digital works. Granted, biblioclasts are not rushing out to literally burn piles of Kindles. However, the lack of scholarly inquiry into the nature and practice of digital censorship was noticeably lacking.
In addition to secondary sources such as books and journal articles, I relied on primary sources such as newspaper articles (Chronicling America Website from the Library of Congress) and film footage to examine instances of book burning in the 20th century. This approach did not work so well for my exploration of the topic during the 21st century, however. Many of the newspaper databases required a subscription and I was unable to search for specific known incidents or could not get the full article. For more recent acts of book burning, I unfortunately had to rely more heavily on news websites and non-academic resources.
To complete the project, I referred to my initial research questions and analyzed the primary and secondary sources gathered in order to recognize similarities and differences between book burning approaches and effectiveness. The absence of helpful studies in this area reinforced the revelation that a project such as this would contribute to an understanding of the topic.