Contemporary developments in the book publishing industry are changing the system as we know it. Changes in established understandings of authorship and readership are leading to new business models in line with the postulates of Web 2.0. Socially networked authorship, book production and reading are among the social and discursive practices starting to define this emerging system. Websites offering socially networked, collaborative and shared reading are increasingly important. Social Reading maps socially networked reading within the larger framework of a changing conception of books and reading. This book is structured into chapters covering topics in: social reading and a new conception of the book; an evaluation of social reading platforms; an analysis of social reading applications; the personalization of system contents; reading in the Cloud and the development of new business models; and Open Access e-books. - Discusses social reading as an emerging tendency involving authors, readers, librarians, publishers, and other industry professionals - Describes how the way we read is changing - Presents ways in which the major players in the digital content industry are developing specific applications to foster socially networked reading

“A lively survey…her research and insights make us conscious of how we, today, use books.”—John Sutherland, The New York Times Book Review Two centuries before the advent of radio, television, and motion pictures, books were a cherished form of popular entertainment and an integral component of domestic social life. In this fascinating and vivid history, Abigail Williams explores the ways in which shared reading shaped the lives and literary culture of the eighteenth century, offering new perspectives on how books have been used by their readers, and the part they have played in middle-class homes and families. Drawing on marginalia, letters and diaries, library catalogues, elocution manuals, subscription lists, and more, Williams offers fresh and fascinating insights into reading, performance, and the history of middle-class home life. “Williams’s charming pageant of anecdotes…conjures a world strikingly different from our own but surprisingly similar in many ways, a time when reading was on the rise and whole worlds sprang up around it.”—TheWashington Post

Learners encounter social and emotional challenges every day. Some rise to the demands, while others struggle. Social and emotional learning (SEL) lessons can help all learners thrive. Busy school librarians and educators who appreciate the power of teaching with picture books will celebrate this all-in-one text designed to promote SEL through the school library.

A compilation of over 50 reading project ideas, including implementation ideas and examples, helping to promote lifelong reading habits while meeting the social and interactive needs of today's youth. Social Readers: Promoting Reading in the 21st Century is about making reading meaningful to the Web 2.0 generation through active engagement and socially interactive projects. Organized into four broad categories—entertainment, active participation, control and choice, and technology—the book offers more than 50 specific project ideas for promoting reading in the classroom, school, library media center, or public library. Each project includes a description, cost estimate, planning time needed, suggested supplies, and instructions for running the project successfully. Topics such as sharing, involvement, book promotions, social networking, and developing informed readers are also covered. A preface and introduction provide an overview of the needs and preferences of the current generation of students, a discussion of the necessity for socializing reading, and insights into how to use the book effectively. Bottom line: Social Readers will help librarians and educators change their practices to accommodate the ever-evolving needs of today's students.

Literary culture has become a form of popular culture over the last fifteen years thanks to the success of televised book clubs, film adaptations, big-box book stores, online bookselling, and face-to-face and online book groups. This volume offers the first critical analysis of mass reading events and the contemporary meanings of reading in the UK, USA, and Canada based on original interviews and surveys with readers and event organizers. The resurgence of book groups has inspired new cultural formations of what the authors call "shared reading." They interrogate the enduring attraction of an old technology for readers, community organizers, and government agencies, exploring the social practices inspired by the sharing of books in public spaces and revealing the complex ideological investments made by readers, cultural workers, institutions, and the mass media in the meanings of reading.

Reading for pleasure urgently requires a higher profile to raise attainment and increase children’s engagement as self-motivated and socially interactive readers. Building Communities of Engaged Readers highlights the concept of ‘Reading Teachers’ who are not only knowledgeable about texts for children, but are aware of their own reading identities and prepared to share their enthusiasm and understanding of what being a reader means. Sharing the processes of reading with young readers is an innovative approach to developing new generations of readers. Examining the interplay between the ‘will and the skill’ to read, the book distinctively details a reading for pleasure pedagogy and demonstrates that reader engagement is strongly influenced by relationships between children, teachers, families and communities. Importantly it provides compelling evidence that reciprocal reading communities in school encompass: a shared concept of what it means to be a reader in the 21st century; considerable teacher and child knowledge of children’s literature and other texts; pedagogic practices which acknowledge and develop diverse reader identities; spontaneous ‘inside-text talk’ on the part of all members; a shift in the focus of control and new social spaces that encourage choice and children’s rights as readers. Written by experts in the literacy field and illustrated throughout with examples from the project schools, it is essential reading for all those concerned with improving young people’s enjoyment of and attainment in reading.

While the United States stumbles, an award-winning foreign correspondent chronicles China’s dramatic moves to become a dominant power. As the world’s second-largest economy, China is extending its influence across the globe with the complicity of democratic nations. Joanna Chiu has spent a decade tracking China’s propulsive rise, from the political aspects of the multi-billion-dollar “New Silk Road” global investment project to a growing sway on foreign countries and multilateral institutions through “United Front” efforts. Chiu offers readers background on the protests in Hong Kong, underground churches in Beijing, and exile Uyghur communities in Turkey, and exposes Beijing’s high-tech surveillance and aggressive measures that result in human rights violations against those who challenge its power. The new world disorder documented in China Unbound lays out the disturbing implications for global stability, prosperity, and civil rights everywhere.

A book-length introduction to the work of Michel Foucault in social work. Each chapter of the text emphasizes different notions from Foucault's writings. Contributions include conceptual, philosophical, and methodological considerations, and discussions from various fields and levels of practice.

This book examines the reading cultures developed by communities of readers and book lovers on BookTube, Bookstagram, and BookTok as an increasingly important influence on contemporary book and literary culture. It explores how the affordances of social media platforms invite readers to participate in social reading communities and engage in creative and curatorial practices that express their identity as readers and book lovers. The interdisciplinary team of authors argue that by creating new opportunities for readers to engage in social reading practices, bookish social media has elevated the agency and visibility of readers and book consumers within literary culture. It has also reshaped the cultural and economic dynamics of book recommendations by creating a space in which different actors are able to form an identity as mediators of reading culture. Concise and accessible, this introduction to an increasingly central set of literary practices is essential reading for students and scholars of literature, sociology, media, and cultural studies, as well as teachers and professionals in the book and library industries.

Rapid changes in communication channels, tools, and conventions of interaction over the last two decades have paved the way for increasingly digital learning environments. In second language (L2) education, shifts toward digital learning and teaching were intensified during the pandemic and many such formats are here to stay. At the same time, a growing interest in socially oriented pedagogies in L2 learning and teaching is prompting many L2 researchers and practitioners to investigate new research areas and explore post-communicative language teaching pedagogies that engage learners more deeply with cultural texts, using a range of semiotic and linguistic resources. Digital Social Reading (DSR) is a pedagogical approach that affords technology-mediated collaborative reading, where texts are read through a digital platform that allows two or more readers to highlight the same virtual copy of a text and discuss it through a digital interface that affords synchronous or asynchronous margin dialogues anchored in specific passages. This book offers empirical studies demonstrating how DSR can foster–and illuminate–learner interactions that mediate learning, and also work that focuses on language teaching perspectives in DSR environments, including task design and assessment issues.