Our Blog
View every post and publication of interest from the ‘Teen Reading in the Digital Era’ group
Research
Who in your neighbourhood supports teen reading?
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...
The Online Book Consumption Practices of Teen Readers: Mapping the Digital Ecology of Young Adult Fiction
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...
School survey now live!
The Teen Reading project is working with secondary schools in WA, NSW, QLD and VIC to survey Australian teenagers about their reading behaviour. This research aims to better understand how teenagers choose, read and discuss books, to ensure that they are better able...
Summer Focus Groups
‘It’s like watching a movie in my head’ During the January school holidays we ran a short range of focus groups with teenagers in South Australia and regional and urban Victoria. We asked participants about sources of book recommendations, where they access books and...
Interview with Mel Cranenburgh on Triple R’s Backstory
I had a pleasurable conversation about reading, empathy, and our new project (at least a bit) on Melbourne RRR on Wednesday 13th November. You can catch it as a podcast. Also speaking was Jane Sullivan about memories of the books of childhood - well worth a listen....
Australia Council & Macquarie Survey results
The survey results from the Australia Council and Macquarie University three-year study of Australians' reading habits are now available on the Australia Council website. It found that word of mouth was the most frequent physical source of information about reading...
Nick Earls on the fluctuating sales of ebooks
The Books and Arts program on Radio National recently explored reports that ebook sales are declining. Michael Cathcart interviewed Australian novelist Nick Earls, who says we shouldn't discount ebooks yet. Earls has also written an article for The Conversation this...
Growing up in Ireland study
The longitudinal study Growing Up in Ireland found that cultural participation - which includes reading for pleasure - increases both academic performance and socio-emotional well-being for participating young people.
Unpacking the Statistics
I recently came across Nick Earls' article on The Conversation, 'Has the print book trumped digital? Beware of glib conclusions.' This article raises some important points about the data behind the statistics on ebook and paper book sales. Traditional sources of these...
Leisure reading on an e-book
Interesting article from ChanLin Lih-Juan who compared university students' use of e-book features for both academic and leisure reading, and found that e-book features were most valued for academic reading. See Lih-Juan, ChanLin (2013) "Reading strategy and the need...
Our Blog Categories
Case study
Thirteen Reasons Why- Book to TV
A quick look down the titles of our teens' favourite books shows that many of these popular titles have been translated into film. Perhaps the popularity of the books led to the making of the film or inversely, the popularity of the film led to increased readership of...
Guide/Tool
New Explainer – Tiktok
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...
Media
‘It’s official: reading is cool again’ ArtsHub
ArtsHub have covered our research this month, reporting on the key findings of our pilot study
Events
Australian Reading Hour Recordings Available
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...
Australian Reading Hour Event Waterfront Library
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'...
National Education Summit
Leonie, Bronwyn and Katya were pleased to present interim findings from the schools survey at the National Education Summit in Melbourne in June 2022. Based on over 3000 survey responses, this presentation included information on how often and how much time teenagers...
Australian Library and Information National Conference – Canberra
Professor Katya Johanson and Associate Professor Leonie Rutherford presented at the Australian Library and Information Association Conference in Canberra on 19 October 2022. The conference theme - diversity was examined in various contexts throughout the conference...
Findings
What books did Australian teens enjoy reading most in the last two years?
What books did teens enjoy most in 2023 and 2024? The Discovering a Good Read (DAGR) study is about to publish some findings from our survey about Australian secondary school students’ leisure reading behaviour. Published in the Synergy in early October 2024 our...
Teen Reading Project Update
2023 is the final year of our project: 'Discovering a ‘Good Read’: Cultural Pathways to Reading for Australian Teens in a Digital Age'. Earlier this year we published a newsletter providing an update on our research activities in 2022 and a preview of some our...
New publication: Beyond the “good story” and sales history: Where is the reader in the publishing process?
In this paper we investigated whether there might be structures within the book industry that mitigate against publishing a greater quantity of diverse stories, or that might hinder a search for more diverse authors or a diverse readership. We interviewed a range of...
New publication: #Ownvoices, Disruptive Platforms, and Reader Reception in Young Adult Publishing
In this paper we examine the effects of the #ownvoices movement in the market for, and consumption of, young adult fiction through a focus on the promotional strategies and critical reception of a single book: Australian author Craig Silvey’s most recent young adult...
Where do teens discuss books online?
This blog post provides an extract of the findings from the Teen Reading in the Digital Era pilot report. You can read the full report here
Who pays for eBooks and how are they shared?
This blog post provides an extract of the findings from the Teen Reading in the Digital Era pilot report. You can read the full report here
How are teens accessing books?
This blog post provides an extract of the findings from the Teen Reading in the Digital Era pilot report. You can read the full report here
Use of alternative formats
This blog post provides an extract of the findings from the Teen Reading in the Digital Era pilot report. You can read the full report here
Barriers to reading more on digital devices
This blog post provides an extract of the findings from the Teen Reading in the Digital Era pilot report. You can read the full report here
The Barriers to Reading
This blog post provides an extract of the findings from the Teen Reading in the Digital Era pilot report. You can read the full report here
News
New funding!
Australian Research Council Grant Discovering a ‘good read’: Pathways to reading for Australian teens Breaking news (July 2019) – the next phase of our research has received funding through the ARC's Linkage Projects scheme. The scheme is designed to support research...
Associate Professor Andrew Singleton
Andrew Singleton joined our group in October 2016. Primarily a sociologist of religion, Andrew has worked on projects on young people's spirituality. He is also skilled in both quantitative and qualitative research methods and mixed methods. We're very happy that he's...
Planning intensive
Last week, the research group met at the Deakin City Centre to pore over the data we've collected and put together a dissemination strategy for 2017. We also welcomed Associate Professor Andrew Singleton to the group. Andrew showed us what the data looks like in SSPS...