Self-publishing: Publicera själv eller publicera sig själv?

Abstract

This essay deals with various forms of self-publishing, both in the sense of publishing without the aid of a traditional publishing house, and in the sense that you turn yourself into a publication of sorts, by, for instance, exhibiting personal information on the Internet. The rise of copyright in the early 1700’s was an important factor when it came to centering publication on a certain individual author. Today, the role of authors as well as the fixed form of both the printed edition and the singular copy of a manuscript are again being dissolved. Furthermore, the boundaries between private and public as well as those between fact and fiction are being blurred. This observation, together with the notion of the permanently connected citizen, permanently monitoring and at the same time permanently being monitored, could possibly lead to the emergence of a sort of "hyperpublic sphere" (or in German, "Hyperöffentlichkeit"), a term used here with some reference to Habermas’s well-known expression "Bürgerliche Öffentlichkeit".