BookTubers as Multimodal Reading Influencers: An Analysis of Subscriber Interactions

The objective of the study was to learn about the relationships between BookTubers and their subscribers by focusing on the comments left by viewers of the audio-visual literary reviews. We also examined whether viewer-BookTuber relationships resulted in the promotion of reading. A mixed qualitative-quantitative methodology was followed, including a descriptive analysis of contents and a case study. The main tools used were MAXQDA to process the qualitative data and Excel to obtain the quantitative data. The sample was a non-random selection of four BookTubers channels, taking into account both their impact and gender equality (two female and two male BookTubers). The categorization was conducted based on Cultural Studies and Reception Aesthetics. A total of eight videos (four reviews and four Book Hauls) were selected and 100 comments on each were analyzed, giving rise to four categories. The results indicated that in terms of content decoding, close relationships were established among community members, between both consumers and producers. In addition, message acceptance took place and a certain relationship was found between the BookTuber’s work and the promotion of reading. BookTubers were therefore identified as multimodal influencers.This research was funded by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades: “Innovación epistémica de un modelo de comentario argumentativo de textos multimodales en la enseñanza del español como lengua materna y extranjera”, grant number PGC2018-101457-B-I00-IARCO; and University of Alicante “Research Group GIDU-EDUTIC/IN”, grant number VIGROB-330