by Leonie Rutherford | Jul 13, 2023 | Events
The Teen Reading Team and guests Danielle Binks and Christine Oughtred presented at an event at Deakin’s Waterfront Library earlier this year. Edited recordings of the Event are now available.
Introductions to the Event and Speakers led by Deakin Library’s Lucinda Buckley
Teenage Readers What We Know – Dr Bronwyn Reddan
What works to engage teenagers – AsPr Leonie Rutherford
The Industry Context of YA Books – Danielle Binks, Author and Literary Agent
The Children’s Book Council of Australia Shadow Judging Program – Christine Oughtred, CBCA Member and Deakin University PhD Candidate
Question Time 1 – Shadow Judging Program
Question Time 2 – School Library Collection Management, Gatekeeping and their Impact
Question Time 3 – Fan Fiction and other Types of Reading
Question Time 4 – Final Questions and Team Contact Slide
by Leonie Rutherford | Mar 31, 2023 | Events
The team recently hosted a successful public panel at Waterfront Library, to share research and industry insights about keeping teenagers reading in an age of distractions. The event was aligned with the Australian Reading Hour, a national celebration of Australians’ love of reading hosted by the Australian Publishers Association. It was aimed primarily at parents and those who share books with teens.
Presenting on behalf of the Cultural Pathways ARC Linkage Team were Associate Professor Leonie Rutherford and Research Fellow Dr Bronwyn Reddan. Danielle Binks, YA author and literary agent, and Christine Oughred, from the Children’s Book Council Shadow Judging Project. The panel gave their perspectives on adolescents’ engagement with literature, insights about reading preferences, and tips about what to do, and not to do, to encourage reading.
Waterfront Library Public Event Area
The event which was held on Monday 27 April was a new partnership with Deakin Library as the first of the library’s public events program. The panel was recorded on video and will be available via the Teen Reading website and YouTube Channel once edited.
by Leonie Rutherford | Sep 13, 2022 | Research
Team member and Deakin University PhD candidate Anne-Marie May is researching how booksellers and librarians influence teen recreational reading at the physical sites of bookstores, school libraries, and public libraries. She takes a geographically located approach to investigate the sites of book culture and the networks between them that comprise a local reading ecology for teens. Anne-Marie has selected an inner-Melbourne local government area for her study for its distribution and density of secondary school campuses, public library branches, and independent bookstores, as well as for the cultural and socio-economic diversity of its residents.
Anne-Marie identifies and analyses intermediary practices that impact teen recreational reading from data collected in interviews with booksellers and librarians, and focus groups with secondary school-aged students. These include direct and indirect practices such as book talk, readers’ advisory, read-alikes, shelf-talkers, promotion of local authors, gatekeeping, displays, genrefication of collections, and book clubs. Affective labour underpins the practices of booksellers and librarians and is key to their networks. Anne-Marie’s work promotes understanding the commonalities and differences between the occupation groups, the barriers they face implementing their practices and how their specific positions in a localised reading ecology impacts their work with teen recreational reading. By doing so, her study aims to answer how these cultural intermediaries can increase their impact on teen recreational reading.
by Leonie Rutherford | Jul 5, 2022 | Guide/Tool
Dr Bronwyn Reddan’s publication for the teacher librarian community has just been published on Synergy.
The explainer covers the following:
- What opportunities do readers have to engage with books on the digital social media platforms YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok?
- How might this affect Australian teenagers when choosing leisure reading material?
- What are the reading practices and book talk teens engage in in the digital reading communities on online social media networks.
- The development of different social reading cultures on BookTube, Bookstagram, and BookTok.
by Leonie Rutherford | Jun 24, 2022 | Research
Team member and QUT PhD candidate Amy Schoonens is researching the consumption practices of YA fiction on social media by teens and other content creators (including authors and publishers). Amy explores the ways teens use their reading experience to engage in digital and social media spaces creatively, critically, socially, and in ways that represent an extension of their book engagement and recreational reading practices. These practices include:
- Reviewing and rating the book
- Recreating the book in some form, such as book covers, or character fashion
- Curating aesthetics and themes from the book through digital image collages
- Creating memes about books and other kinds of fandoms
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