Reading Walls: Digital Social Readers

Abstract

Reading and writing have now become more democratic. Reading has taken to a new level since the internet has become the main source of reading. Reading is seen as no longer a one-way communication, instead, it has become interactive. Readers easily can contact the writer or co-write or become authors themselves and self-publish their work online. Social media participation in digital social reading has allowed this phenomenon to take place. One of these social reading platforms is Wattpad. Wattpad is a recent example of how a new generation of influential and innovative writers and readers collaborate in this social media publication. Wattpad stories are known to be 'alive and breathing' as writers and readers can participate in the inline comments, thus creating an online social reading platform. The inline comments from readers and authors were investigated in this research. A qualitative method of textual and content analysis was done to assess the inline comments of a fanfiction story over a social online reading platform which is the Wattpad. It is hoped this study will help to give an insight into digital social readers among Malaysian undergraduates,