Abstract
The social and technical aspects of environments of electronic publishing in Japan are reviewed in this article. Great progress has been made in communications, computers and materials. In the 80's, new enterprises have been set up one after the other to take advantage of CATV, Videotext, satellite broadcasting, package media and computer communication. Some of them are flourishing but others are stagnant. On the other hand, the publishing industry has been selling books and journals worth over $10 billion per annum despite the recession of recent years. Publishers would like to grab the business opportunities created by recent technological progress, but most of them are not sure whether electronic publishing could be popular in traditional markets. The author suggests that for electronic publishing to be accepted, publishers should pay particular attention to the content and quality of publications and not just to the media by which they are presented.