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The last professional meeting in the heart of FIFO’s 7^th edition about the question of digital: is it going to kill print, the radio, writing and photography?

How do editors, writers and journalists…perceive digital’s advance and what equilibrium is forming between these forms of expression and digital technology?

At first glance we are fearful and believe that digital technology is going ‘to kill’ lots of jobs, and then we realise that finally, in a sector like that of books, considered one of the last bastions of traditional industry, digital is already everywhere in the production chain. Cable will for example allow much larger files to be sent (as an example: a book can be between 10 and 100 mega and an illustrated art book from 30 to 40 giga). The Honotua cable will then allow a larger data flow, but in reality not everything is digital in the last phase in the world of books (the format and the screen is still unknown).Today the book chain is very structured; in the virtual world there is a tendency to ignore steps and so to abolish intermediaries like the editor or the bookshop for example. Nothing prevents a writer from putting a book online without going through an editor, like certain artists make themselves known on the web without going through a publisher and without editing a CD, but care must be taken with the economic model chosen and to place the holders of the rights at the centre (writers, composers, editors..), as there is a real danger if it is the access providers who possess the command of the cultural product.

In addition, Haere Po’s experience of putting certain work online was interesting for several reasons: it is a way of getting the product known, to prevent over printing and also to transport it to the other side of the world, as the export freight costs for a local editor are very expensive. A newspaper can be distributed more widely and without cost with digital support (on the islands for example). Digital kiosks can be pictured to consult or print newspapers from around the world.

The internet is a tool very adapted to the media and the distribution of information. Anything which is free regarding books is harmful. The SNE (National Editors Trade Union) complained against Google which puts thousands of books online although complete publication sections are already available digitally (encyclopaedias, travel guides…) It has been realised that digital, a development factor, distribution ease… is not frightening since it always situates the creator at the centre of the process and that is where there are still blurred areas.

The revolution is digital. It condemns the existing economic models which must imperatively reposition themselves or risk disappearance. Society, trade bodies must adapt to this new technology which evolves very quickly but which cannot be ignored today. And insofar as everyone has the possibility of leaving a mark on the net, the added value becomes primordial and makes the difference (pertinent analysis, expertise for the journalist for example).

Two steps are important on the net: to build an audience and monetize it (through advertising bias, sale of content and the creation of paying areas).

In the United States, for example, internet users financed journalists on a site to follow Obama’s presidential campaign. E-learning is booming in universities and the arrival of the iPad which offers sound, image and video…replacing the iPod and the computer together, shows that the evolution is constant and that the tools are more and more efficient. Digital should then be seen as means of development but it will not kill creation in any way. Writers will continue to write, musicians to compose and painters to paint.