KNL: Dorothee Birke: BookTube and Co: An Introduction to Reading Culture on Social Media

We often hear that in the age of the digitalization, people no longer read books. What this juxtaposition of “online culture” and “book culture” ignores, however, is the fact that there is a growing group of readers who combine “old” and “new” media practices and use social media to structure and communicate their lives as book lovers. This talk presents the example of BookTube – a group of YouTube channels – in order to discuss how literary reading is `done` on social media. Which affordances of BookTube do the practitioners utilize for their reading? Does the printed book as an object still play a role in this context? To what extent do social media transform literary reading into a more social activity? And how does this relate to long-standing reading practices?

Join the lecture to find out more about the world of online book culture – and on the way reflect about your own reading practices in the age of digitalization.

Please register here to receive the link to the event

// Prof. Dorothee Birke (Associate Professor for English Literature, Norwegian University of Science and Technology)

Recommended reading:

• Naya Reads and Smiles: «How I Annotate My Books» https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UEtd3-fRws