Thinking about reading in the world of digital…
There is no denying that the way we read has changed. Scholars and researchers (like Hayles) point to the changes in the physical and cognitive ways we read, drawing attention to different modalities of reading, such as hyperreading or, emerging now on a massive scale, machine reading. These are usually compared with the present-for-centuries method of close reading. As a result of these evolving practices, our attention shifts from deep focus to skimming, pecking, and falling down the rabbit hole of hyper….
However, cognitive changes are one thing; what is also being transformed is the way we perceive reading, how we choose to read, what we choose to read, but more importantly, what is the “cultural value” and value in general that we attribute to a text, reading as an activity, readers and writers as people, etc. In the essay ‘Charting the Digital Literary Sphere’, Simone Murray takes a closer look at the essential domain that materialised with the ubiquitous emergence of “cyber” – the titular “digital literary sphere”. “Substack”, “Booktok”, “bookstagram”, “Goodreads”, the omnipresent Amazon.com… all the digital platforms, nooks and crannies of the Web that have already transformed and are still reconstructing the reading culture. What comes with this handiwork of the digital age has two sides. On the one hand, to use Murray’s phrasing, the digital literary sphere ‘erodes many of the traditional gatekeeper roles’, opening up discussions surrounding literature to amateurs and validating their taste. On the other hand, these developments ‘radically [undercut] the cultural-arbiter status of professional literary critics’ and in effect ‘”literature” […] becomes that which the digital literary sphere deems to be literature’. What, however, are the processes that are enmeshed in the digital redefinition of “literature”?
Crucially, we need to consider the cultural production of the contemporary digital literary sphere. David Wright draws attention to the ongoing ‘shift from word-of-mouth recommendation to algorithms recognised by software, in which […] the forms of “value” identified and exchanged by reviewers – are coded and automated’. As an example, the critic focuses on the “List Culture”, think: the trending books, “Top 100 books to read before you die”, book prizes, and the top 10 books on Amazon.com. And yes, I agree with Wright that “the list”, as well as (not mentioned by the author) bookstagram posts, Goodreads statictics, etc., [are] also a way of ‘negotiating the “endless” literary choice of the digital age’, because, it is true, the sheer volume of available books to read can be overwhelming. But! when looking at these developments, I cannot help but think about the processes of production, marketing, commodification, and consumption…
In the digital world, or the “digital literary sphere”, reading becomes inextricably tangled with the omnipresent standardised data – data about our reading, our tastes, “best of …” lists based on our ratings out of 5 stars, views and shares of posts, comments that unavoidably attract internet trolls, and so on. This all seems symptomatic of “knowing capitalism”.
“Knowing capitalism” is Nigel Thrift’s term (mentioned also in Wright’s article) that refers to an economic system in which data and information function as means of attributing value, specifically capital value. In such a societal structure, institutions and corporations use the collected data to generate profit for themselves but also to control human experience. In the digital world of reading, our tastes, reading activities, reviews, book culture in general, are being constantly observed, analysed and converted into massive amounts of data for the book industry conglomerates that then, as Wright puts it, ‘offer a means of organising and prioritising resources in the book industry such that they are “actively participating in the doings of the book world.”‘
Reading has thus entered, in Murray’s words, ‘a hazardous terrain of valorizing and consecrating authorities’. TO me it seems that reading is becoming kind of a dance between what seems anti-reductionist “sophisticated” reading practices of those interested in ” the content” of the book, how it is conveyed, questions and reflections it leads to; and, the commercial cover-based colourful world of 5 out of 5 best reads according to … I suppose, in a way, the value of reading is also changing, from the cultural, intellectual value of critical thinking to commercial, profit-oriented valuation.
Articles I mentioned:
