The booktuber channels as a space of socialization of youth reading practices

Abstract

This work approaches the reading practices of booktubers, young people who use YouTube to talk about books. In order to identify the transformations that the platform introduces in the cultural practices around literary readings, the content of the videos of the 6 booktubers’ channels is classified according to the functions they perform in the forms of the readings’ socialization. The resulting functions are: analyzing the readings, showing the personal literary collections and selecting literary information through challenges or games that they share with other booktubers. The analysis of the distribution of the types of socialization practices in these channels shows how booktubers organize and shape these categories, specializing in a function, according to their own interest, age or reading experience, or the consolidation of a virtual community that generates and produces content of interest. This way, they establish themselves as mediators of an evolving reading process, taking advantage of technological tools to transform the reading practice.