Worldlit as MMORPG?

Abstract

The marketing of world literature today is marked by the larger migration of literary culture to Web 2.0. This has gone hand in hand with a reconsignment of influence of orthodox authorities, from established reviewing organs to awards, to the amateur readers congregating on social media platforms, first and foremost on Goodreads, the world’s largest online community for circulating literary recommendations and socialization. The present paper traces this reconsignment of influence by examining the engagement of the Goodreads community with the works that were awarded the Booker Prize or the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction between 2015 and 2019, looking at reader reviews as well as the discussions ensuing from those reviews. As such, the reconsignment of influence is concluded to be regulated by the algorithmic rules of Goodreads and its proprietary platform, Amazon.com.