Reading Audio Readers - (Bloomsbury Studies in Digital Cultures) by Karl Berglund (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The first computational study of reading to focus on audiobooks, this book uses a unique and substantial set of reader consumption data to show how audiobooks and digital streaming platforms affect our literary culture. Offering an academic perspective on the kind of user data hoard we associate with tech companies, it asks: when it comes to audiobooks, what do people really read, and how and when do they read it?

Tracking hundreds of thousands of readers on the level per user and hour, Reading Audio Readers combines computational methods from cultural analytics with theoretical perspectives from book history, publishing studies, and media studies. In doing so, it provides new insights into reading practices in digital platforms, the effects of the audiobook boom, and the business-models for book publishing and distribution in the age of streamed audio.

Review Quotes

"The resulting empirical account of the country that streams the most audiobooks per capita is full of surprises that will make any book historian or media scholar rethink received wisdom generated in the absence of such hard data." --Public Books

"This fascinating book collects Berglund's research on streamed audiobook "readership" patterns and influence ... Any library supporting undergraduate or graduate degrees in literature or communications will want to acquire this well-documented and excellently written book." --CHOICE

"Berglund has managed to gain access to the kind of industry data other researchers only dream about. His study of audiobook listeners and subscription streaming in Sweden explodes some of our most deeply entrenched assumptions about how, when, and what people read." --James English, John Welsh Centennial Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania, USA

"How can the users of Storytel transform our ideas about reading, books, and bookselling? Anyone who cares about what readers do, and how publishing is changing because of audiobooks should read this compelling and uniquely researched book." --Danielle Fuller, Professor in English and Film Studies, The University of Alberta, Canada

"Karl Berglund's Reading Audio Readers is invaluable to the study of digital publishing, reading and audiobook consumption... The book is highly useful for researchers of publishing in the streaming age." --Publishing Research Quarterly

"Berglund's book is rich in lucid analyses, perceptive observations, and well-reasoned arguments, all supported by computer-assisted methods and refined through qualitative contextualizations. Although the primary focus is on the strictly contemporary-or more precisely, the period from January 2014 to April 2021-the discussion and findings are consistently framed within a historical perspective. This contextualization is crucial, as the phenomenon in question appears to represent a significant shift in both reading practices and book sales." --Patrik Lundell, Professor in Media History, Örebro University. Translated from Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap

About the Author