Distant Reading. New forms of interaction with digital text

Abstract

This paper explores Distant Reading as a form of reading capable of enriching – rather than replacing – the traditional practice of Close Reading. Drawing on Franco Moretti’s theoretical framework, the article examines how digital text analysis tools, and in particular the open source platform Voyant Tools, do not merely offer techniques for the quantitative exploration of texts, but introduce specific modes of interaction with them. In this perspective, the so-called practices of ‘non-reading’ – grounded in the observation of frequencies, patterns and semantic networks – reflect new forms of reading in which the reader engages with visualisations, graphs and representations of textual data. Therefore, Distant Reading trains to orient within a text before reading it in full, to recognise its structures and the relationships between data, and to critically interrogate the results. What emerges is the profile of an active reader, capable of moving across different levels of textual representation and of integrating quantitative observation with qualitative interpretation. These competencies extend beyond literary analysis and become particularly relevant in the context of contemporary digital reading, characterized by information overload, fragmentation, and non-linearity, opening up important perspectives for critical literacy within library and information science.