Sharing information through book reviews in blogs. The viewpoint of Rosenblatt’s reader-response theory
| Pages | 440-461 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-08-2019-0161 |
| Published date | 03 December 2019 |
| Date | 03 December 2019 |
| Author | Reijo Savolainen |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Sharing information through book
reviews in blogs
The viewpoint of Rosenblatt’s
reader-response theory
Reijo Savolainen
Faculty of Information Technology and Communications Sciences,
Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to contribute to research on information sharing by drawing on the
reader-response theory developed by Louise Rosenblatt. To this end, information sharing is approached by
examining how bloggers communicate their reading experiences of fiction and non-fiction books.
Design/methodology/approach –The conceptual framework is based on the differentiation between efferent
and aesthetic reading stances specified by Rosenblatt. The efferent stance directs attention to what is to be
extracted fromreading for instrumental purposes such as task performance. The aesthetic stance focuses on
what is being lived through during the reading event. Rosenblatt’s framework was elaborated by specifying eight
categoriesof efferent readingand six categories of aesthetic reading.The ways in which bloggerscommunicate
their responses to such readings were examined by scrutinising a sample of 300posts from two book blogs.
Findings –The bloggers mainly articulated responses to efferent reading by sharing information about the
content of the reviewed books, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Responses to aesthetic reading were
mainly articulated by describing how the bloggers experienced the narrative, what kind immersive
experiences they had and what kind of emotions were felt during the reading process.
Research limitations/implications –As the study is explorative in nature and focusses on a sample of
blog posts, the findings cannot be generalised to depict how people share their responses to efferent and
aesthetic reading in social media forums.
Originality/value –The paper pioneers by examining the potential of Rosenblatt’s theory in the study of
sharing information about reading experiences in book blogs. The findings demonstrate that the categories of
efferent and aesthetic reading can be elaborated further for the needs of information behaviour research.
Keywords Reading, Information sharing, Blogging about books, Book blogs, Book reviews,
Reader-response theory
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
As a form of language processing, reading is a multi-faceted phenomenon dealing with the
decoding of symbols. One of the most influential research approaches to reading is the
theoretical branch of reader-response theories that have been developed since the 1930s
(Tracey and Morrow, 2017). These theories depart from the assumption that reader is an
active agent interpreting the meaning of a literary work. Louise Rosenblatt’s (1978, 2004)
reader-response theory offers a particularly relevant framework for the present study,
because she conceptualises reading as a dynamic phenomenon incorporating aesthetic,
informational and communicative aspects. The above theory is pertinent to information
behaviour research because it offers a novel perspective on the phenomena of information
acquisition, use and sharing. First, reading can be approached as the process of acquiring
cognitive-affective information and aesthetic experience from texts such as books and
articles. Second, reading can be conceptualised as a form of information use because the
decoding of symbols is based on the interpretation of signs, words and sentences. Third, in
Rosenblatt’s theory, reading is intertwined with writing. Her approach to phenomena of
“reading for writing”opens a novel research perspective to examine how information
sought and used during the reading process is shared with others by communicating one’s
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 76 No. 2, 2020
pp. 440-461
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-08-2019-0161
Received 20 August 2019
Revised 21 October 2019
Accepted 27 October 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
440
JD
76,2
reading experiences. To strengthen the focus of the study, the present investigation
concentrates on the last-mentioned aspect of reading.
As a major point of departure, Rosenblatt’s theory conceptualises reading as a process in
which an individual’s selective attention to text is guided by two stances or purposes:
aesthetic and efferent. The aesthetic stance motivates the individual to concentrate on an
ongoing reading event as a self-gratifying experience. This approach is particularly
characteristic of pleasure reading that is freely chosen and is primarily conducted for
enjoyment (Ross, 2004). The efferent stance prompts the individual to retain information
obtained during the reading process so that information thus acquired can be used for an
instrumental purpose, for example, performing a task. From this perspective, efferent
reading is thus particularly relevant for studies focusing on the ways in which people seek
for problem-specific information (Savolainen, 2008). Rosenblatt’s theory also approaches
reading as a communicative phenomenon in that the individual can share his or her
responses to aesthetic and efferent reading with other people by means of writing a book
review, for example.
The main goal of the present study is to examine the potential of Rosenblatt’s theory for
information behaviour research by analysing how information sought efferently and
experiencedaesthetically is shared withothers. To this end, an empirical study wasconducted
by scrutinising how responses to aesthetic and efferent reading are communicated in book
reviews submitted to blogs. Such reviews offer pertinent research material because they are
indicative of the ways in which people approach literary texts such as fiction and non-fiction
books from the viewpoint of aesthetic and efferent reading. In the field of library and
information science thus far, Rosenb latt’s theory has been utilised quite rarely. Ross (2004)
drew on Rosenblatt’side as while investigating the f eatures of pleasure reading .M ore recently,
Latham (2014) made use of Rosenblatt’s framework to investigate how people experience
museum objectsas documents. The presentstudy differs from the aboveinvestigations in that
it approaches efferent and aesthetic reading from the viewpoint of information sharing
occurring in social media. The research approach is new, and the study also contributes to
research on how user-generated content is shared in social media.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. First, to give background, Rosenblatt’s
theory is characterised in greater detail, and the nature of book blogs is briefly described.
Thereafter, the conceptual framework and the empirical research setting will be specified,
followed by the reportof the empirical findings. The concludingsections discuss the research
findings and reflect their significance with regard to information behaviour research.
Literature review
Rosenblatt’s reader-response theory
Rosenblatt’s theory represents one of the most significant frameworks for conceptualising
reading and writing (Sadoski and Paivio, 2007, pp. 348-349). An early version of the theory was
published in 1938 in her book Literature as Exploration. Four decades later, Rosenblatt (1978)
elaborated her ideas in the book titled TheReader,theText,thePoem:TheTransactional
Theory of the Literary Work. The book draws on John Dewey’s pragmatist epistemology
emphasising the significance of transaction in the process of constructing meaning (Connell,
1996). The term transaction implies that the self of the reader and the text take on their
character during the process of reading. On this basis, Rosenblatt (1978, p. 18) locates meaning
construction in the personal lived-through quality of a literary experience, making the
relationship between the text and the reader central.
Rosenblatt (2004) most significant theoretical contribution is the specification of reader’s
stances on thetext. As the transaction with thetext stirs up elements of the reader’slinguistic-
experiential reservoir, he or she adopts a stance, that is, a selective attitude,bringing certain
aspects into the centre of attention and pushing others into the fringes of consciousness
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