Social reading and new mediation: qualitative study about the relationship between youth reading, social networks and libraries

Abstract

This paper explores the phenomenon of social reading and reflects – through a field research – on the role of collaborative platforms' role, book clubs and the new mediation represented by book influencers, to determine the impact of the digital environment on the young readers' behaviors and choices and their perception of library as a place of development and cultural growth. For this purpose, some semi-structured interviews have been submitted to the users of the platform Wattpad and to some book bloggers and booktubers. The study enabled to find a fil rouge between the topic of youth reading, cross-media experience and the relationship with the library and the web; it consists of a first approach to start delineating a way of work for the future and try to understand what the library could do to meet the needs of the new users, more and more ‘connected’ and immersed in a fragmented cultural horizon, where social networks represent the main compass to orient oneself. The primary challenge for the libraries in the contemporary world seems to be making an alliance with influencers and the world of web, launching collaborations, both presential and virtual, and presenting themselves as institutions who keep up with the times, in order to be taken more into account even by a difficult audience such as that of teenagers and millennials and become more ‘visible’ to non-users and weak readers.