INTRODUCTION

The Shannon-Weaver model, originally devised to conceptualise telecommunications, has proved to be a useful means of describing any form of communication which involves technological intervention (Shannon and Weaver 1949). In theoretical terms, it can certainly be used to describe the publishing process in a highly simplified form:

AUTHOR → PUBLISHER → READER Shannon-Weaver adapted to publishing

In practice, the process is, of course, far more complicated than this implies, and involves many different participants and functions. Nevertheless, this simple model gives an important insight by putting the emphasis on the publisher as an intermediary between the author and the reader, or, in more formal terms, between the source and the recipient.