For most of my life, I was an avid consumer and enjoyer of books. It started with my mother or grandmother reading to me and my sister before we would fall into deep slumber. Or it was audiobooks I would listen to on the rides with my parents. Then the means of consumption expanded when I learned how to read by myself and a lot of time I would spend with my nose stuck in the books for a long time. And even though nowadays, to my displeasure, I don’t read as much as I used to I am still in love with books.
What I find fascinating is that for the longest time up until I was around 11 or 12 I never really questioned how and why I read the books I read To elaborate further, my mom would buy my books from a popular publishing company for children and because I always found myself enjoying them I never wished to change anything. However, the summer when I was 12 I vividly remember reading the ‘Percy Jackson & The Olympians’ series and immediately following that I read ‘The Heroes of Olymous’ series. If I am being honest I have no memory concerning how I stumbled upon the series but I do remember that I made a conscious decision to read them. After that, I think most of the books I read during my free time were chosen by me based on several factors.
In recent years, a phenomenon known as BookTok arose. It is a subcommunity that talks about books and everything revolving around them, on an app called TikTok. The BookTok along with BookTube (a community for books and book lovers on YouTube), became somewhat of a big influence in the world of books. A lot of new and old books gained and continue to gain popularity thanks to those communities.
After learning about the Two-Step Flow Theory, it made me wonder how it can be applied to BookTok or BookTube.
The First source or the Main Media are the Publishing Companies and Authors, who contact the Influencers of BookTok or BookTube with their product. Those influencers are seen as opinion leaders, who in turn distribute their reviews and opinions on the books to their audience. This process results in the public getting information about a certain product from a secondary and perhaps more trustworthy source in their opinion than publishing companies. And therefore they are more likely to get the book that the person they like recommends.
However, even though those communities have contributed to the rise of reading and allowed people to easily find books they would love through algorithms and by following influencers who have similar tastes, they still have certain drawbacks. One of them would be promoting problematic books with false advertisements. And while a discussion of whether the book is problematic or not is another question, I still feel it is important to mention that this can be viewed as one of the drawbacks. An example that comes to mind is the praise of the book ‘It Ends With Us’ by Colen Hoover, which a lot of influencers advertised as a romance book, when in fact many believed that it glorified domestic abuse.
Reference List:
Wood, M. (2022) ‘The rise of reading: BookTok and its massive popularity’, The Butler Collegian. Available at: https://thebutlercollegian.com/2022/09/the-rise-of-reading-booktok-and-its-massive-popularity/ (Accessed: 2023).
Young, J. (2022) ‘Stop Praising Colleen Hoover’s “It Ends With Us.” Here’s What You’re Missing’, Ms. Available at: https://msmagazine.com/2022/09/07/it-ends-with-us-book-review/ (Accessed: 2023).
I love this work as you have related it to you and your personal experience with reading and books. It’s also great that you’ve input the diagram to relate to your discussion on books and the beginning of booktok/booktube. I think just for improve, it would have been good to have a little introduction to the two step flow theory and who brought it up, just to give someone who knows nothing about it a background on what they’ll be reading into. Other than that, it’s really good. Well done!
Like you, I love reading and experiencing the different lives of the main characters in books. I feel the same way you do; in my childhood it was easy to settle down and read a book in an afternoon. But as I got older, it became harder and harder for me to read a book in one sitting, usually off and on. After reading your blog, I will be interested in finding out about book Tok and maybe some of the books recommended in there will interest me. But it’s true that some bloggers use false advertising to promote ambiguous books. It’s the same two-step flow theory that I blogged about, that we as a community need to be able to recognize disinformation and pseudo-opinion leaders as we access information.
I am also an avid book lover and I really like how you’ve broken down your own journey through books as well as comparing it to the new rise of book communities on social media. I also like how you’ve mentioned examples of books that have risen to popularity due to these media but may not have been the best books ethically, and the fact that these books only rose because of promotions. Maybe explaining to the two step flow theory before showing how it fits into the reading community. But other than that I enjoyed reading this article very much!