I propose a different view on e-paper. I have grown up with Mac computers, and the internet, I run a small publishing company and adore the physical aesthetic of the printed and bound book. I write journalistically and literarily and run a new research and development site, taking a hard look at cutting edge technologies.

Occasionally, I read actual printed newspapers, and the newspaper format (printed or online —online they work best when they try to do something like the broad-scope content presentation that broadsheet provides [considering that hyperlinks can help save space and therefore designs don't necessarily resemble the print format]).

I think it’s vital to take into account that print journalists want to see the broadsheet format, in part because they are people who understand both the production and the consumption elements of the newspaper marketplace.

The key to this particular question by a reporter is whether scanning significant amounts of information simultaneously would be possible. We tend to think of on-screen reading (i.e. digital) as an exercise where size is counterproductive and the goal is the most minuscule. However, as graphic designers understand, there is something liberating about surface area, depending on your intentions.

E-paper could serve exactly that function. Imagine a sheet of e-paper the width of two human hairs, but which is more or less the size of a broadsheet newspaper. It can fold or unfold, and the outer surface will show digital contents either way, adjusting to the size you have “requested” to see, based on the folding.

Due to its extreme light weight, such a format would be ideal for expanding the usability and user-freedom of browsing digital content. You could see multiple pages (either of contained pdf-type documents or eventually real-time online browsing — limited at present by e-paper’s low computing intensity).

This provides for a much richer end-user experience and the possibility of presenting a broader array of information to the reader. A Google search, if one could work on an e-paper single-sheet foldable display, such as I describe, could have 80 or 100 “first-page” hits, instead of 10 or 15.

Advertising possibilities explode with this format, and that is precisely why the broadsheet became such a global standard for serious news organizations: it allowed the simultaneous presentation of massive amounts of textual and visual information, in-depth reports, and the advertising necessary to finance the operation in a serious way.

“This prompted one of the journalists in the room to ask if these displays could ever be the size of a broadsheet newspaper, so that she could open the pages and scan the information.”

Hermida quotes Mindy McAdams, one of the conference presenters: “The journalist was thinking about imitating a dead format that most people find awkward and inconvenient.” He goes on to explain that this sort of question is in fact “shocking”, which is understandable if you consider that all ‘new media’ should follow the same rules and consider the same traits indispensable.

Hermida adds “It is an example of how people tend to adopt new technologies based on existing practices and norms. In this case, how print journalists look to e-paper to replicate what we already do with real paper.” Would there be any uses similar to broadsheet that could work? Maybe not, maybe e-paper is really just another step toward the scaling down of screen size and energy intensity, but a fresh view would be interesting.