This thesis investigates young readers' reading practices in relation to social media, in an attempt to bridge the gap between students' own experiences and school librarians' reading promotion efforts. This has been done through an online questionnaire with school librarians concerning if, and how, they currently work with digital reading communities, combined with an interview study with seven high school students who identify themselves as readers and current, or former, users of BookTok. The results from the survey show that school librarians mainly work with digital reading communities by displaying trending books and informing their book purchases. The results from the interview study show that young Swedish readers place high aesthetic value on the book as an object; they prefer to read in English, and they do not enjoy compulsory reading in school when they have no agency in what books to read. The conclusions drawn are that the young readers have a strong sense of identity connected to their reading practices and that this "reading identity" is at least partly shaped by digital reading communities such as BookTok. Furthermore, there are potential areas for school librarians to develop their work with digital reading communities in order to meet their students' needs. Firstly, through involving the students in not only selecting and purchasing books, but also in norm critical discussions of themes that are present in trending literature. Secondly, through collaboration with teachers in their literature teachings. The implications of the study are particularly directed toward high school librarians, due to the demographic of the participants, but can be applied to other ages and other professionals who work with reading promotion. This is a two-year master's thesis in Library and Information Science.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-533126 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Wisth, Elin |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för ABM |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Uppsatser inom biblioteks- & informationsvetenskap, 1650-4267 ; 914 |
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