In Argentina, many young people have become bookfluencers, reading literary texts and sharing their reviews and opinions of books online. Additionally, some young people, as part of the reading and writing practices offerd by new digital technologies, present themselves as reference points for other readers and promote literature as something to enjoy and consume.

Beside using digital technology to express ourselves and communicate with other people, it has also given rise to other languages that expand, enrich, and sometimes even replace the written word: for example, images, emojis, GIFs, stickers, memes, videos that have been edited and put to music, filters, etc. This way of constructing meaning is known as multimodality (Carey Jewitt, 2009). So, we could say that looking at an Instagram post or  a TikTok or YouTube video is an encounter with multimodal practices—in other words, a combination of multiple semiotic codes. And why is it important to be aware of this? Because it is part of “digital literacy”¹, or, in other words “semiotic activity mediated by digital technologies” (Thorne, 2013, p. 203).

Let’s zoom in on this definition to get a better understanding. Being digitally literate implies not only a knowledge of the technical aspects of digital devices, but also of how they can be used. This involves staying safe online, being able to communicate on social media, using these channels to create content, and adopting a critical attitude to the information in circulation. The specific nature of each platform and app is irrelevant; these will change over time. The focus needs to be on the skills that can be developed through these tools. We know children, teenagers, and young adults use them without necessarily mastering all the aspects involved. Many need to be taught. Producing rather than simply consuming meaning using the different formats mentioned (image, sound, music, gestures) means putting your imagination and creativity into action. 

Digital Literacy

Let’s map the most important current platforms and apps for reading and writing.

First, there are those used to record, classify, and review reading material, like Goodreads and Storygraph. Second, there are other platforms and social media created for purposes other than reading, which readers have gradually adopted, such as Booktubers (YouTube), Bookstagrammers (Instagram), and BookTokers (TikTok), which will be examined in more detail later.  

Third place is reserved for platforms where you can read and write to amateur authors, such as Fanfic.net, Wattpad, Booknet, and dedicated comic platforms such as Tapas and Webtoon. These spaces allow users to interact directly with readers and receive comments and reviews about their work.

Finally, it’s important to look at some emerging genres, such as podcasts dedicated to reading, and especially to discussions about books, series, films, newsletters, and writing competitions, which boast an increasingly significant online presence.

Virtual Reading Catalogues

Goodreads was born in 2006 and bought by Amazon in 2013. Founder Otis Chandler relates that the idea came to him when he was browsing a friend’s bookshelves and realized how much he’d like to examine all his friends’ bookshelves and ask for their reading recommendations. This led to the realization that he could create a virtual library, which would allow him to spy on other people’s reading, “want-to-read” lists, current books, and what they have read thus far. Goodreads allows users to score books and leave a brief review. It also displays a section of similar titles below the book, which act as further reading suggestions. It’s a way of not only quantifying but also registering what you have read, and, above all, it’s an app that allows you to keep adding to your want-to-read pile, which is a never-ending activity.

In 2019, entrepreneur and systems engineer Nadia Odunayo developed Storygraph under the tagline “because life’s too short for a book you’re not in the mood for.” This platform allows you to personalize your book search by features like genre, plot, and writing style. As you add to your reading, it uses graphics to display the genre you read most, how many pages you read and how fast you read. Unlike Goodreads, Storygraph allows you to comment on why you didn’t finish a book and includes the pages you read from books you didn’t finish in your total page count, which suggests that how much you read, be that in terms of books or pages, is deemed relevant for users. When Storygraph was created in 2019, Goodreads had already reached 90 million users and was positioned as the only relevant platform for recording your reading. However, while at the time of writing Storygraph has yet to reach 1 million users, it is becoming increasingly relevant, becoming the first platform aiming to compete with Goodreads.

These apps are sustained by their reading communities, as they update the reviews, leave comments, and support and generate a degree of trust in the scores given to specific books—user opinions are generally trusted. Before buying a book, you can search the title on a range of apps to see if it’s worth diving in. 

It’s interesting to note that people can leave “trigger/content warnings” or “red flags” along with their scores, to warn readers who may be sensitive to specific kinds of content. For example, domestic violence, death of a loved one, toxic relationships, illness, rape scenes…   While some readers may find such warnings a relief, others find them excessive, as they can even give the plot away. Red flags generally cover sensitive topics like death, illness, loss, grief, scenes of sexual violence, and toxic relationships. 

What do these platforms say about reading habits? On the one hand, there is a need to record and account for what you have read, and to show it to others, without necessarily registering your opinion. On the other, they allow users to search not only for new titles, genres, and authors, but also for the kind of stories they want to read, almost on repeat. This allows them to avoid being disappointed thanks to the community’s comments. Themes do not guarantee a book’s success, and often a story on something that isn’t our key interest is a pleasant surprise. The publishing market is clearly behind these platforms, using data from the apps to decide what to publish, while social networks are increasingly influential on people’s behavior. This will be examined in more detail below.

These platforms are allies when it comes to selecting a book. Users act as curators, and gradually other readers come to identify with those with whom their tastes coincide. They even allow readers to chat to authors, who often include a note about how or why they wrote the novel in question. It’s a way of following and supporting authors, especially when they are not yet well known. 

In this way, reading is associated with a game: challenges are a fun way to choose books, with the rules adapted to individual user interests, and they can also be a way to get out of your comfort zone and discover new authors.

Dutch communications specialist José van Dijck (2013) notes that we have moved from participatory to connected culture in only ten years.  This means our “socialness” is being shaped by platforms. Virtual environments have room for professional, intellectual, and cultural activities. Think of any category—for example, “kitchen” or “dermatology” or “gardening”—and you’ll find that niche has its own space on social media too.  People use social media to communicate, but also to find out about what they’re interested in and enjoy.

BookTubers, a.k.a. young people leaving book reviews on YouTube, emerged between 2010 and 2012. They usually sit facing the camera in front of a bookshelf or wall and talk about one or more books that they have read or would like to read. The internet created a new form of “literary review.” Although ten years have now passed since BookTubers began, they are still going strong, and the types of videos they use to generate content have now spread to other channels, like Instagram and TikTok.

As Roxana Morduchowicz (2021) points out, the internet not only gave BookTubers a voice and the opportunity to share experiences; it also gave them the opportunity to choose the format, frequency, and type of content they would like to use to do so. Gradually, they acquired visibility and followers, leading several to move behind the screen, partnering and even working with publishers.

A look at video content categories shows that it’s not just about reviews. People also comment on what they are hoping and wanting to read, they create challenges to define and reinforce paths to reading, and they even set each other trivia quizzes and games. In other words, reading is seen as something fun and, above all, as a practice that generates emotion.

“BookTok Made Me Do It”

“BookTok made me do it” is one of the hashtags and phrases flying around TikTok. Why? And what does it mean? Authors and publishers are increasingly using this platform to promote their books. TikTok videos, which are short but attention-grabbing, and generate anticipation for the books at hand, are viewed thousands of times, which translates into sales and then more comments about these books once they’ve been read. 

TikTok is home to subcultures “that use the space as a critical center for shaping and realizing community identities and cultures” (Boffone, 2022, p. 5). In fact, BookTok is home to a great LGBTQ+ movement demanding that all forms of diversity be represented in literature. At the time of writing this article, the #lgbtqbooks hashtag has over 84 million views on TikTok. As Stewart (2021) says, “Media-literate young people are especially drawn to promotion done by peers with no financial stake in a product.”

Publishers have a significant presence on Instagram and TikTok. They send specific titles to the influencers with the greatest numbers of followers and greatest levels of interaction with those followers. In this way, being new or something that “everyone” is reading is enough to make people want to read a particular book. Community functions by imitation, to a certain degree. Members want to know what’s going on, they want to be in the conversation, and that implies reading what everyone else is reading, both at home and abroad.

This summary shows how social media and online platforms provide informal learning spaces. We need to understand and explore them, to understand their risks as well as their appeal, to get closer to how young people and teenagers are using them. Dezuanni (2021) calls the kind of learning available on these platforms “peer pedagogies” in which people learn from each other without any express desire to teach. Their content includes both reading practices and the exhibition of books and libraries (Dezuanni, 2021). Along these lines, Boffone points out, “TikTok is public pedagogy […] it teaches us how to behave, what to listen to, what to buy, how to speak, how to interact with each other, and more” (Boffone, 2022, p.6). 

Young people of various ages use different platforms to share content about reading and to consume content, as well as to reach wider audiences through their productions. Based on the interviews and observations carried out, we know that some started on YouTube and migrated to Instagram, while others launched directly on Instagram or TikTok, and several use more than one platform or channel at the same time. However, others prefer to stick to a single social media channel, as it takes too much time and effort to have more. 

Not everyone who has an account achieves “influencer” status, but when you are a Bookstagrammer or BookToker, all you must do is open a specific account about and for books, post regularly, and (above all) participate in online conversations: in other words, interact, share, and work actively together with other members of the community. According to the users themselves, it’s not your number of followers that counts, as everyone is welcome; the key lies in your creativity and your connection to the community.

In fact, we have found there are young people who browse online without just sliding their finger automatically and apathetically over posts. There are young people who read, listen to what others think about books, talk and write about it, and even dream of becoming authors and forming part of specific and traditional environments like book fairs. Reading practices in these environments skirt the boundaries between an avidity and an obsession with reading and collecting books, but they are also reading experiences: they idealize an ability to read for hours. Meanwhile, social networks have become a channel for expression, for belonging, and for peer-learning. Apps and platforms will continue to advance. Some will disappear, others will emerge, there will be greater combinations and relations between them; this means it’s important to monitor these practices closely. Knowing about and understanding them will also allow us to get to know and understand their users, their needs, interests, fears, uncertainties, and their ways of seeing the worlds of reading and writing, which is nothing less than culture itself.

Translated by Clare Gaunt

1 Some attribute this use of technologies to an innate condition. You will have heard of the concept of “digital natives.” This is a determinist idea of technology that denies any form of personal agency when it comes to these practices. Mark Prensky came up with the terms “digital natives and digital immigrants” in 2001. The author argues that the generational change was caused by technological transformation (Jones, 2010). However, his theory lacks empirical evidence and far from helping, in the world of education, this classification has increased limits and led to false generalizations.

Bibliography

Boffone, T. Jerasa, S. (2022). BookTok 101: TikTok, Digital Literacies, and Out‐of‐School Reading Practices. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 65 (3), 219-226.

Borda, L. and Trovarelli, C. (2021) Relatos en Wattpad: ¿es posible una fanfiction sin fanatismo? in Borda, L. et al. (2021). Fanatismos: prácticas de consumo de la cultura de masas. Autonomous City of Buenos Aires: Prometeo Libros.

Dezuanni, M. L. (2021). TikTok’s peer pedagogies – learning about books through #booktok videos. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research.

Jewitt, C. (2013). Multimodal methods for researching digital technologies. The SAGE handbook of digital technology research, 250-265.

Morduchowicz, R. (2021). Adolescentes, participación y ciudadanía digital. CFE.

Stewart, S. (2021). How TikTok Makes Backlist Books into Bestsellers.

Thorne, S. (2013). Digital literacies. In M.R. Hawkins (Ed.), Framing languages and literacies: Socially situated views and perspectives (pp. 193-218). New York, NY: Routledge.

Van Dijck, J. (2013). La cultura de la conectividad. Una historia crítica de las redes sociales. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI. 

Photo: @felipepelaquim, Unsplash.