A historical and comparative analysis of multiplatform books for young readers: Technologies of production, user-generated content, and economics of immaterial and affective labor

This dissertation examines how publishers' book-based cultural products for young adults are created, produced, disseminated, received, and consumed with a focus on the contemporary practice of producing transmedia and multiplatform books that are embedded in technology, rely on user-generated content, and increasingly mirror production and consumption practices in other media industries. Three layers of participants in the field of literary production for young adults considered were: 1) producers; 2) critics and disseminators; 3) recipients. Using a case study approach, the phenomenon is explored in a historical context, and presents a comparative analysis of developments within the field. The data collection included interviews, a focus group, document analysis, archival and historical research, and web analytics. Rooted in a key discourse of librarianship for young people since the early 20th century that justified social reform in the belief that improving minds leads to improving lives, the study of reform underpinning librarians' efforts now includes access to technology. Yet technology establishes a disintermediated relationship between publishers and teenage readers, fragmenting librarians' traditional roles as shapers of cultural value in that field of cultural production. Now publishers can market directly to teens on their participatory websites. The study has shown divergence in how publishers and teens have appropriated the idea of digital formats and reading and has shown how excorporation on maturing publishers' sites aimed at engaging teenagers' affective and immaterial labor challenge such assumptions about digital literacy. The research revealed how technology transforms librarians' roles, and publishers' marketing strategies, and how publishers' websites eventually enable teens to circumvent the sites' rules and engage in exchanges ranging from verbal skirmishes to creative postings of transgressive content. Limitations of this study are tied to the use of 'assigned' readers to study teenagers' responses, and those inherent in free but corporate-owned web analytics as a source of data. This study provides a rich understanding of an emerging phenomenon related to digital platforms and online reading for young adults, connecting historical examples to contemporary ones.