Booktubers: considerations on literary mediation in digital environments

Abstract

Considering the current dimension of the digital universe, the work seeks to understand new spaces for the promotion of reading, books, and literature, as well as the different agents that carry out their mediation. Having as general objective to analyze the Brazilian booktube community as an agent of literary mediation, the research has a qualitative nature, with descriptive exploratory purpose. Bibliographic research and virtual ethnography are used. The last decades brought new professions and terminologies, resulting from the success of digital environments. One of them is youtubers, which, in short, are people who have a channel and make posts on the YouTube video platform. The branch of Youtube that talks about books is also called Booktube, and people with channels that address this topic, booktubers. The current reality opens new paths for the dynamics of reading and literary discussions. The pertinence of understanding the characteristics of these new ways of mediating literary reading and the impacts that platforms and digital mediators can have on the formation and behavior of readers is inferred. It is understood that the booktube, as well as libraries, can be meeting spaces not only with books, but with other people, other cultures, other worlds. It is imperative that mediation work, as well as the actions of mediating institutions and agents, accompany the construction of new realities and current techno-social scenarios, as pointed out in this discussion, otherwise the necessary dialogue with society will be increasingly reduced.