The means and locations of reading are becoming increasingly significant. This is not only reflected in the academic world but also in the press. This chapter addresses the question of whether the locations and means of reading have changed in the past ten years since the advent of the e-reader. Have the places and manner of reading become more flexible? Has reading “on the go” replaced traditional locations of literary reading? Is more literature being read on mobile devices or is reading on paper still preferred over digital means—or are current readers hybrid readers? These are the questions that underpin this chapter. A connected series of experiments was conducted that seeks to explore the question of locations and means of contemporary acts of reading. It is hoped that the results that emerge may point the way to more qualitative and quantitative studies on this increasingly significant topic.
Social media campaigning is increasingly linked with anti-democratic outcomes, with concerns to date centring on paid adverts, rather than organic content produced by a new set of online political influencers. This study systematically compares voter exposure to these new campaign actors with candidate-sponsored ads, as well as established and alternative news sources during the US 2020 presidential election. Specifically, we examine how far higher exposure to these sources is linked with key trends identified in the democratic deconsolidation thesis. We use data from a national YouGov survey designed to measure digital campaign exposure to test our hypotheses. Findings show that while higher exposure to online political influencers is linked to more extremist opinions, followers are not disengaging from conventional politics. Exposure to paid political ads, however, is confirmed as a potential source of growing distrust in political institutions.
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