BookTubers as a Networked Knowledge Community

Abstract

In order to understand the relationship between Networked Knowledge Communities (NKCs) and the Networked Knowledge Society (NKS), the chapter authors conduct a genre analysis of a self-titled New Media genre called BookTube. BookTube is a NKC made up of YouTube content creators who use this particular social media channel to celebrate and discuss books, especially young-adult fiction. By examining how BookTube adheres to discourse community features—shared rules, genres, hierarchies, and values—the contours of this particular NKC become clearer. Stylistic patterns, the roles of authors, and author cultural capital all get negotiated within a discernible and definable set of practices that relate participants to other NKCs and the broader NKS. Furthermore, by relating these discourse features to other latent educational possibilities of the NKS, the authors explore how BookTube might be usefully implemented to model NKC practices in more traditional f2f educational settings.

Nuevos ecosistemas transmedia para la promoción de la lectura en la era de los booktubers

“…Desde el preciso momento que los canales de YouTube se centran en ámbitos de promoción y difusión de la lectura se entra en el universo booktuber. Estos canales se erigen como comunidades de intercambio y construcción del conocimiento cultural a través del vídeo (Vizcaíno, Contreras, y Guzmán, 2019;Sorensen y Mara, 2014). Los canales de booktubers se retroalimentan no sólo de las visitas directas al propio canal sino, como analizaremos posteriormente, de la presencia en distintas redes sociales (principalmente Instagram, Twitter y Facebook) que enlazan sus perfiles al propio canal de YouTube.…”

Negotiating Collaborations: BookTubers, The Publishing Industry, and YouTube’s Ecosystem

“…The research about BookTubers is relatively scarce. They have been studied through the lens of teenage literacies, framing them as a “networked knowledge community” (Sorensen & Mara, 2013), or from the perspective of participatory cultures and the debates around Brazilian BookTubers’ legitimacy to talk about books (Jeffman, 2017). Lluch describes how BookTubing in Spain has evolved from other online participatory spaces, like literary blogs and online forums.…”

BookTubing Across Regions: Examining Differences Based on Nonverbal and Verbal Cues

“…The author observed that the trends include the characteristics of the books that are discussed, the influential role of the BookTuber and the possibility of formation of YA canons due to the kind of titles discussed in the community. Sorenson et al [30] conducted a genre-analysis of BookTube to understand the relationship between Networked Knowledge Communities (NKCs) and the Networked Knowledge Society (NKS). The authors examined BookTube as a discourse community and observed that the members have shared rules, genres, hierarchies and values.…”