Independet silent reading - Out of old habit or a lesson with purpose?  The aim of this study was to examine whether teachers use the method of independent silent reading purposefully or if they do it out of old habit. The research focuses on what purpose the teachers have and which working methods they use when working with silent reading. I investigated who it is that chooses the books to be read and what factors are determining this choise. Finally, I wanted to find out how the silent reading time is used by the pupils and the teachers. In order to investigate this, observations were made in classes during silent reading time and semistructured interviews were conducted with teachers and students. The results show that most teachers have a clear purpose with silent reading and that they work with different reading strategies to teach the children to become independent silent readers. However, an important part of succeeding in silent reading is that it happens on a regular basis, preferably every day.     Finally, I would like to thank my supervisor Yvonne Knospe, university lecturer at the Department of Language Studies, Umeå University for all the feedback and guidence during the work process. It has been a pleasure to have you as a supervisor. Thank you!

The main objective for this study was to explore Storytel users’ selection of audiobooks to examine what search strategies and relevance aspects emerge in the relation to a digital book streaming service mobile application, and to examine how this application aids and influences its users in the search and selection of audiobooks. With the help of previous research on book selection and the concepts of search strategies and tactics, as well as the user-centered perspective on relevance and the concept of the digital paratext, five interviews with audiobook readers were analysed. The two major search approaches were known item search and browsing. The major difference compared to previous research on book selection was the new, additional component of the performing narrator. The narrator did not provide any new relevance aspects to the already identified in earlier studies, but rather, proved to be a component spread out on the already identified relevance aspects. Compared to previous research, the author of this study would, however, like to emphasis the relevance aspect of variation. The fact emerged that the readers used the book(s) read previously as a reference, but not necessarily as something they wanted more of or something similar to, but as something they liked something different from. In this desire for variation, the Storytel’s browsing and recommendations’ functions seemed to fall short and the context of the social world outside the app broke in as a helpful aspect of the audiobook selection.

Metadata is essential to how (digital) archives, collections or databases operate. It is the backbone to organise different types of content, make them discoverable and keep the digital records’ authenticity, integrity and meaning over time. For that reason, it is also important to iteratively assess if the metadata is of high quality. Despite its importance, there is an acknowledged lack of research verifying if existing assessment frameworks and methodologies do indeed work and if so how well, especially in fields outside the libraries. Thus, this thesis conducted an exploratory case study and applied already existing frameworks in a new context by evaluating the metadata quality of audiobooks. The Information Continuum Model was used as a way to capture the metadata quality needs of customers/end users who will be searching and listening to audiobooks. Using a mixed methods approach, the results showed that the frameworks can indeed be generalised and adapted to a new context. However, although the frameworks helped measure, identify and find potential solutions to the problems, they could be better adjusted to the context and more metrics and information could be added. Thus, there can be a generalised method to assess metadata quality. But the method needs improvements and to be used by people who understand the data and the processes to reach its full potential.

I den här studien har jag undersökt vilka berättelser unga och barn möter genom barn- och ungdomslitteratur och även på vilka sätt som denna typ av litteratur finns tillgänglig att läsa. Studien innehåller även ekonomiska aspekter. Jag har utgått från dessa frågeställningar: • Hur kan olika skrift- och ordval möjliggöra inkludering i text? • Hur kan litteratur göras tillgängligt för flera olika lässätt? • Hur ser representation av icke normativa människor ut i barn och ungdomslitteratur? Jag har valt att arbeta med just dessa frågeställningar eftersom vi i skolan arbetar med berättelser, texter och sagor under hela skolgången och har skyldighet att ge våra elever en demokratisk grund och material som de kan känna igen sig i och relatera till. Material och metoder som vi väljer måste vara tillgängliga för alla oberoende av funktionsvariationer. Undersökningen har resulterat i en bok som är skriven på ett sätt där alla karaktärerna är avidentifierade, utan några fysiska, biologiska eller funktionella attribut. Genom denna avidentifiering får läsaren möjlighet att läsa in sin egen karaktär eller sig själv i berättelsen och skapa egna bilder. Boken är tillgänglig, inte bara utifrån inkludering i läsningen och berättelsen, utan även genom att en kan ta till sig texten med hjälp av olika lässätt. Den är skriven i alfabetsskrift, i punktskrift och finns som ljudbok. Under undersökningen, med avseende på lässätt, har det blivit allt tydligare att barn- och ungdomslitteratur kan vara svårt att få tag på som inläst material och att det är nästan omöjligt om en inte har tillgång till appar som till exempel Legimus. Angående representation i det begränsade antal sagor, biografier, berättande faktaböcker eller påhittade berättelser som jag använt, så finns sällan personer som anses utanför normen, inte ens i litteratur som utger sig för att vara inkluderande.

Audiobook reading has traditionally been used for educational purposes but has in recent times grown into a popular alternative to the more traditional means of consuming literature. In order to differentiate themselves from other players in the market, but also provide their users enjoyable literature, several audiobook companies have lately directed their efforts on producing own content. Creating highly rated content is, however, no easy task and one reoccurring challenge is how to make a bestselling story. In an attempt to identify latent features shared by successful audiobooks and evaluate proposed methods for literary quantification, this thesis employs an array of frameworks from the field of Statistics, Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing on data and literature provided by Storytel - Sweden’s largest audiobook company. We analyze and identify important features from a collection of 3077 Swedish books concerning their promotional and literary success. By considering features from the aspects Metadata, Theme, Plot, Style and Readability, we found that popular books are typically published as a book series, cover 1-3 central topics, write about, e.g., daughter-mother relationships and human closeness but that they also hold, on average, a higher proportion of verbs and a lower degree of short words. Despite successfully identifying these, but also other factors, we recognized that none of our models predicted “bestseller” adequately and that future work may desire to study additional factors, employ other models or even use different metrics to define and measure popularity. From our evaluation of the literary quantification methods, namely topic modeling and narrative approximation, we found that these methods are, in general, suitable for Swedish texts but that they require further improvement and experimentation to be successfully deployed for Swedish literature. For topic modeling, we recognized that the sole use of nouns provided more interpretable topics and that the inclusion of character names tended to pollute the topics. We also identified and discussed the possible problem of word inflections when modeling topics for more morphologically complex languages, and that additional preprocessing treatments such as word lemmatization or post-training text normalization may improve the quality and interpretability of topics. For the narrative approximation, we discovered that the method currently suffers from three shortcomings: (1) unreliable sentence segmentation, (2) unsatisfactory dictionary-based sentiment analysis and (3) the possible loss of sentiment information induced by translations. Despite only examining a handful of literary work, we further found that books written initially in Swedish had narratives that were more cross-language consistent compared to books written in English and then translated to Swedish.

This paper explores narratology with a focus on metaphorical and physical voice in Don DeLillo’s 1982 novel, The Names. Beginning with an overview of previous criticism on the novel and an exploration of its post-modern qualities, I progress into a discussion of meaning, and how it can be found in the narratological voice. The concepts of semantic and vocal form of meaning are taken into consideration. Moreover, it is demonstrated how language in The Names is both representational and experiential.Analysing the novel both in print and in audiobook format, I study voice from the perspective of post-classical narratology. With the use of audionarratological theory, I illustrate how voice in The Names is transformed into an explicit and amplified presence when encountered in its audiobook form. In this context, ideological characteristics of the voice are explored, and I look at how they are semiotically communicated.Finally, since criticism of post-modern fiction usually focuses on representational and metafictional qualities of language, this paper advocates for future research on the experiential qualities of language and asks for this mindset to be applied when analysing post-modern fiction. It is illustrated how the experience of listening to an audiobook version can add to the interpretation of a printed work.

This study aims to investigate how the choice of media form, i.e. printed format, audiobook or reading and audio combined, affect the ability of ESL students to achieve comprehension, and how different ways of asking questions can affect their comprehension ability. Lastly, the study aims to investigate the relationship between comprehension and students’ proficiency levels in their L2. To answer this question, 155 students were recruited and divided into three groups and assigned one type of media form. The quantitative data was collected through an online comprehension test and analysed. The results showed a significant difference between the media forms and revealed that printed reading was superior. However, a printed and audio combination was the most time efficient way for students to achieve comprehension, which indicates that the inclusion of audio does not impede student learning. Previous research in the same field shows that the results are inconclusive, but shares one common conclusion, that students enjoy the audio format. As a result, the educational system should make every effort to media choices for students to choose their preferred media, and more research in the field needs to be done, as students enjoyment leads to increased learning.

Högläsning är ett pedagogiskt verktyg med fördelar gällande såväl möten med olika texter som utvecklande av språkförståelsen. Traditionellt sker högläsning genom att någon läser högt för en grupp eller individ. Ljudböcker anses ha liknande fördelar som traditionell högläsning men det saknas forskning med elevresultat som stödjer antagandet. Avsaknaden av jämförelser mellan olika högläsningsmetoder blev grunden till studiens problemformulering.  Syftet med den här studien är av den anledningen att bidra med kunskap om hur olika fall av högläsning kan påverka elevers hörförståelse. Studien har genomförts med kombination av både kvantitativ och kvalitativ metod genom en undersökning som beskrivs som en interventionsstudie. Studien utgår från framtagna hypoteser och fokuserar på den individuella uppfattningen, därför har den kognitiva teorin använts i analyserna. Materialet har samlats in genom enkäter som elever i åldrarna 8–10 har fått svara på efter att de lyssnat på en berättelse.  I resultatöversikten framgår att de elever som lyssnat på digital högläsning med inlevelse har svarat bättre än de andra grupperna. I de enskilda frågorna är resultaten varierande och bidrar inte med någon definitiv slutsats. Studien bidrar dock med indikationer som både styrker den tidigare forskningen och ger bidrag till professionen genom att öppna upp för diskussioner om högläsningsmetoder och vilka fördelar som finns med de olika metoderna. / Reading aloud is a pedagogical tool with advantages regarding interaction with different text types as well as language development. Traditionally, reading aloud refers to someone reading aloud to a group or individual. Audiobooks are considered to have similar benefits as traditional reading aloud, but there is a lack of research on student results to support that assumption. The lack of comparisons between different reading aloud methods became the basis for this study’s focus.  Therefore, this study aims to contribute with knowledge about how different reading aloud methods can affect students listening comprehension. The study is a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and is described as an intervention study. The study is based on hypotheses and its focus rests on the individual perception, therefore, the cognitive theory is used in the analysis. The material has been collected through surveys that students aged 8-10 answered after listening to a story.  The overall results indicate that audiobooks have the most positive impact on student’s comprehension. The results do not contribute to a definitive conclusion but it contributes with implications that both strengthen previous research and provide a contribution to the profession by opening up for discussions about reading aloud methods and their benefits.

La presente investigación tuvo como objetivo el desarrollo del plan de negocios de una librería digital, especializada en la comercialización de ebooks y audiolibros, en la categoría infantil-juvenil. Alpaquita eBooks busca consolidarse como una alternativa moderna, asequible en precios, con una gran experiencia de usuario y que brinda soluciones a los padres de familia, en el proceso de desarrollo del hábito de la lectura en los niños y adolescentes, así como en la adquisición de libros de texto escolares, en formato digital. En ese sentido, la presente investigación desarrolló el plan de negocio contemplando las fases de planificación y análisis estratégico del entorno, y profundiza la evaluación y desarrollo de estrategias comerciales, operativas y financieras que permitirán la consolidación de Alpaquita eBooks, en los distritos que conforman Lima Moderna: Barranco, Jesús María, La Molina, Lince, Magdalena del Mar, Miraflores, Pueblo Libre, San Borja, San Isidro, San Miguel, Santiago de Surco y Surquillo. La presente investigación consta de ocho capítulos, en los que se expone el contexto externo e interno en el que se desarrolla la empresa (Capítulo 1); el análisis estratégico del negocio (Capítulo 2); el plan de marketing que propone acciones orientadas a la atracción y conversión de clientes, así como a la fidelización en el segmento infantil-juvenil (Capítulo 3); el análisis de los recursos humanos idóneos para el desarrollo de las actividades operativas y de soporte (Capítulo 4); el desarrollo de políticas y procedimientos operativos que garanticen una gran experiencia para los usuarios (Capítulo 5), y el análisis financiero en el que se analiza la viabilidad económica del proyecto, a través del análisis de proyecciones de ingresos, flujos de caja y evaluación de la sensibilidad en distintos escenarios (Capítulo 6). Finalmente, el trabajo concluye con la validación de la viabilidad del negocio, tanto a nivel financiero - con una tasa interna de retorno del 31%, en un escenario conservador - como a nivel de la disposición de compra por parte del mercado objetivo. / The objective of this research work is to develop the business plan of a digital bookstore specialized in the commercialization of ebooks and audiobooks in the child-youth category. In its portfolio Alpaquita eBooks includes school textbooks in digital format . Therefore, this ebook online store achieves to consolidate itself as a modern alternative, affordable in prices, with a great user experience. Alpaquita eBooks will assist to parents in the process of developing the habit of reading in children and adolescents because the platform will include a blog with the last reading methods, expert notes, advices and interviews of the new digital reading trend. In this sense, this reseach work analyzes the viability of the business contemplating the planning phase and strategic and context analysis. the evaluation and development of commercial, operational and financial strategies wich allow the consolidation of Alpaquita eBooks in the districts of Lima Modern such as: Barranco, Jesús María, La Molina, Lince, Magdalena del Mar, Miraflores, Pueblo Libre, San Borja, San Isidro, San Miguel, Santiago de Surco and Surquillo. This research work features eight chapters, in which the external and internal context the company develops (Chapter 1), the strategic analysis of the business (Chapter 2), the marketing plan that proposes actions oriented towards the attraction and conversion of customers, as well as loyalty in the child-youth segment (Chapter 3), the analysis of appropiate human resources for the development of operational and support activities (Chapter 4), the development of policies and procedures operations that guarantee a great user experience (Chapter 5) and the financial analysis in which the economic viability of the project is analyzed, through the analysis of income projections, cash flows and sensitivity assessment in different scenarios (Chapter 6) The research work concludes with the validation of business viability, both at a financial level - with an internal rate of return of 31% in a conservative scenario - and at a purchase disposition level by the target market. / Trabajo de investigación

För studenter på universitet och högskolor med funktionsnedsättningar i form av lässvårigheter, såsom till exempel dyslexi och ADHD, kan tillgången till kurslitteratur i form av talböcker innebära att de får samma möjlighet som övriga studenter att delta fullt ut i studierna och slutföra sina studier. I Sverige har studenter med funktionsnedsättningar på universitet och högskolor rätt till särskilt stöd under studierna, såsom att få kurslitteratur inläst i talboksformat.  Denna uppsats tittar närmare på hur studenter med läsnedsättningar vid Jönköping University (JU) upplever att de får tillgång till talböcker givet hur JU kommunicerar tillgängligheten till dessa böcker. I uppsatsen används en kvalitativ forskningsansats. Åtta intervjuer har genomförts med studenter på JU som använder talböcker. Uppsatsen ger en ögonblicksbild och bygger på de personliga upplevelserna hos de intervjuade studenterna.  Studenterna som intervjuades i denna uppsats uttrycker att de upplever att kommunikationen om talböcker brister och därmed bidrar till att försvåra tillgängligheten. I vissa fall menar studenterna att de inte i tid kunde få tillgång till kurslitteraturen som de behövde för kurserna på grund av bristande kommunikation eller på grund av hur deras förfrågningar hanterades, inte till följd av den faktiska tillgången till talböckerna.  Trots att relevant information om talböcker finns lättillgänglig för studenterna på JUs hemsidor menade studenterna att JU inte kommunicerar tillgängligheten till talböcker på ett sätt som underlättar tillgången. De upplevde att kommunikationen från JUs sida är otillräcklig. Det framkom även att studenterna saknade information och dialog om rättigheterna att få tillgång till kurslitteratur i form av talböcker. För att förbättra så att studenterna får tillgång till kurslitteratur i talboksformat i tid tror de att JU skulle kunna göra mer för att kommunicera tillgängligheten till talböcker.  Med avstamp i filosofen Foucaults synsätt skulle studenter med funktionsnedsättning kunna sägas påverka och utöva makt över sin situation när de förklarar och kommunicerar sina behov av talböcker till JU. Det är viktigt att komma ihåg att det är först då, när det sker, som tillgängligheten till talböcker blir relevant i förhållande till studenternas behov. Möjligen kan slutsatserna i denna uppsats vara ett första steg för att anpassa JUs kommunikation om tillgänglighet till talböcker för att bättre spegla studenternas behov. Uttryckt i Foucaults anda skulle en sådan åtgärd bidra till att skapa ett mer jämlikt maktförhållande mellan JU och studenterna med läsnedsättningar. / For students at university and college level with special needs in relation to reading, such as dyslexia and ADHD, the availability of course literature in the form of audiobooks can enable this group to have the same opportunity as other students to study as well as complete their studies. Indeed, students at university and college level in Sweden, with certain challenges, have a right to special support, including to have any course literature recorded in audiobook format.  This study examines how students with impeded reading capability at Jönköping University (JU) assess their own access to audiobooks given how JU is communicating the availability of audiobooks. A qualitative research method is used in this study. Eight interviews was conducted with students at JU who uses audiobooks. Building on personal experiences from the interviewed students, this study gives a snapshot picture.  Students interviewed in this study expressed that they found that communication on audiobooks were insufficient, thus contributing to making these less accessible. Students argued that they in some cases had not been able to access needed course literature in time, due to the lack of communication or due to how their requests had been handled, not because of the actual lack of audiobooks.  Despite relevant information on audiobooks being available on JU’s homepages, students argued that JU was not communicating the accessibility of audiobooks in a way to allow students ease of access to them. Students argued that communication from JU was insufficient. The study also found that some student lacked information and a dialogue on their rights to have course literature in the format of audiobooks. To enhance students’ access to course literature in the format of audiobooks, these students believe that JU could do more to communicate the accessibility of audiobooks.  Using Foucault’s theory, it could be argued that students with disabilities would be able to utilize their own power over their situation as they explain and communicate their need of audiobooks to JU. It is only as this is done that access to audiobooks will be relevant in relation to student’s needs. Possibly, the conclusions of this study could be a first step to adjust JU’s communication on the access of audiobooks to better mirror student’s needs. Expressed in the spirit of Foucault, such action could contribute in creating a more equal power relation between JU and students with reading disabilities.