Medium & Message

What is the purpose of something written?

What is at stake is the map of knowledge, and how to get it, which until recently has been in the manner Gutenberg put together and now is sort of being replaced by computers and the Internet.

The purpose of something written is its content:

Content

1.Usually, contents.
- something that is contained:the contents of a box.
- the subjects or topics covered in a book or document.
- the chapters or other formal divisions of a book or document:
- a table of contents.

2.something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing, or any of various arts:
- a poetic form adequate to a poetic content.

3.significance or profundity; meaning:
- a clever play that lacks content.

4.substantive information or creative material viewed in contrast to its actual or potential manner of presentation:
- publishers, record companies, and other content providers; a flashy website, but without much content.

5.that which may be perceived in something:
- the latent versus the manifest content of a dream.

6.Philosophy, Logic. the sum of the attributes or notions comprised in a given conception; the substance or matter of cognition.

7.power of containing; holding capacity:
The bowl's content is three quarts.