Introduction to Digital Social Reading

This blogpost was written by the moderator of the guest lecture given by Federico Pianzola in the Digital Social Reading course.

Author: Maureen Studer

What is digital social reading?

The presentation about this topic was given by Federico Pianzola who explained that digital social reading does not just mean “text” + “digital device”. He points out that digital social reading is a contemporary approach to reading that uses digital technologies and online platforms to transform the traditionally solitary act of reading into a collaborative and social experience. Unlike the traditional method of enjoying a book in isolation, digital social reading uses various tools and online communities to encourage interaction, discussion and shared engagement with literature. (Pianzola 2021)

One of the key aspects of digital social reading is the ability for readers to collaboratively annotate digital texts. This means that readers can highlight, comment on and discuss specific passages within a digital book, creating a shared layer of insight and interpretation. This collaborative annotation enhances the reading experience by allowing readers to engage with the text on a deeper level and share their perspectives with others. Virtual book clubs have also become a prominent feature of digital social reading. Often hosted on social media platforms or dedicated websites. These clubs bring together readers from different locations to explore and analyze a chosen book together. Through online discussions, participants can share their thoughts, ask questions and build a sense of community around their shared literary interests. Social media platforms also play a crucial role in digital social reading. Readers use platforms such as Twitter, Goodreads and Facebook to share their reading progress, post reviews and engage in conversations with other readers. The use of specific hashtags related to books or reading challenges helps to connect readers with similar interests, creating a virtual space for discussion and community building.

All of these insights from platforms and media that allow readers to comment, annotate, and engage with each other about the texts they are reading can be very useful for empirical studies in the field of digital social reading. The digital world opens up endless possibilities for analyzing how readers interact with book content. Does digital social reading improve people's reading experience? How does it do this? What role do digital platforms and media play in changing the reading experience? How do they influence reading choices or create hype around certain books? How does digital social reading change the way we perceive older books or classics? Digital Methods such as Web Scraping and Machine Learning make it possible to collect information from all sorts of digital platforms and gain valuable insights into readers emotions, comments, annotations, reviews, recommendations and all sorts of book-related content.

List of some examples of important platforms and tools that contribute to digital social reading:

These platforms and tools can be divided into those that were originally created to provide a space for sharing book-related content, and those that were not intended to be digital social reading platforms but are now used as such.

Wattpad is a popular online platform that has made a significant contribution to digital social reading. Founded in 2006, Wattpad allows users to read and share stories for free. It has grown into a dynamic community where writers can publish their work and readers can discover a wide range of stories from different genres. Wattpad also uses a tool, which allows users to comment on text passages and rate chapters as well as see the annotations and number of votes a chapter has received, which can influence readers' expectations and experiences.

Goodreads is a popular platform for book lovers, allowing users to track their reading, discover new books, join book clubs and participate in discussions. Goodreads is an example of a digital social reading platform that also includes the ability to rate and review book content. Platforms such as Goodreads can be used to look up ratings and reviews of books, which can influence people's purchasing behaviour or expectations of a book.

Instagram and TikTok and YouTube are social media platforms that allow users to express themselves by sharing images, videos and memes and commenting on each other's content. They have also become popular platforms for sharing book-related content, talking about books, giving recommendations, opinions and reviews. Although it is still very difficult, both technically and ethically, to scrape information from these platforms, social media platforms could be very useful for empirical studies in the field of digital social reading.

Most e-readers have the ability to highlight, save and annotate text, as well as look up the definition of words. Kindle e-readers underline passages of a book that are frequently highlighted by other readers. This can change the way a reader perceives a particular passage. Simon Rowberry's research on Kindle highlights suggests that readers often highlight expressions of values, pivotal narrative moments, inspirational statements, plot summaries, famous lines and romantic sentiments. (Rowberry 2019)

How does the field of Digital Humanities align with digital social reading?

The common ground is that it involves digitally supported research on traditional humanities subjects and digital culture or artefacts. Digital social reading research aligns with both aspects, incorporating technical expertise in areas such as markup languages and computational techniques, as well as theoretical frameworks such as stylometry, sentiment analysis, and semantic annotation. The categorization reveals connections to various disciplines beyond the technical domains. Nevertheless, there is still much to be explored in the field of digital social reading. Digitization allows us to read and consume book content in new ways that are not only fascinating, but also leave much room for analysis, exploration, theorization and testing. More case studies and papers need to be published in this field to fully explore the potential of digital social reading in the future.

Finally, this blog entry wants to point out that it is not enough to define digital social reading as "text" + "digital medium". Discussions, reviews and opinions, personalized recommendations, sharing emotions and encountering diversity within platforms that provide a space for readers to exchange their opinions and feelings about a book are also part of digital social reading. Reading in the digital age is for the most part no longer a solitary activity and offers so many ways for interaction and literary analysis.

References:

• Pianzola, F. (Accepted/In press). Digital Social Reading: Sharing Fiction in the 21st Century. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.1162/ba67f642.a0d97dee

• Simone Rebora, Peter Boot, Federico Pianzola, Brigitte Gasser, J Berenike Herrmann, Maria Kraxenberger, Moniek M Kuijpers, Gerhard Lauer, Piroska Lendvai, Thomas C Messerli, Pasqualina Sorrentino, Digital humanities and digital social reading, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Volume 36, Issue Supplement_2, October 2021, Pages ii230–ii250, https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqab020