1.
‘New reading’ or communication?
Finnish students as readers in the
age of social media
JUHA HERKMAN, UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
JUHA.HERKMAN@HELSINKI.FI
ELIISA VAINIKKA, UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE
ELIISA.VAINIKKA@UTA.FI

2.
Introduction
 How does the idea of the „digital revolution‟ challenge
contemporary conceptions of reading?
 Change by spread of networked media and communication
technologies
 Internet the most important medium for younger
generations

3.
Research Questions
 What do Finnish students read at the beginning of the 21st
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
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century?
How are their reading materials selected and from where?
How do they read?
What is the role of ICT and new electronic text forms in
their media use and reading habits?
How revolutionary do their reading habits look compared
to previous studies of Finns as readers?

4.
”Net Generation”
 Contemporary media use and reading habits of Finnish


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students
Survey (N=323), focused interviews, media diaries and
focus group interviews
Young adults 18-30 years-of-age
A transition group between the younger „digital natives‟
born with social and ubiquitous media and the older
generations of „digital immigrants‟
“The Net generation”

5.
Theory of „new reading‟
 Reading as cognitive activity > Cultural studies broadening
meaning of reading > New literacies, socio-cultural
literacy
 Reading is understood as textual practices in which
meanings, interpretations and texts are created from many
different text-types in the networked media environment
 Includes the social dimension
 Different types of “texts”

6.
Results
 Interpersonal and social
communication, short
communicative texts,
notes, debates, messages
are the most often read
text forms
 In addition to Facebook,
other multimodal text
environments, such as
YouTube, wikis, blogs and
discussion forums, were
also popular
Figure 1. Social media use
(percentage of all
respondents, N=323).

7.
Value of Reading in Everyday Life
 Print media valued
 Reading fiction was
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especially appreciated as a
leisure time activity
Lack of time
Online reading as daily
routines
Negative towards digital
publications
From national to a global
content (The Harry Potter
generation?)
Figure 2. Share of print media
among survey respondents
(percentage of all respondents,
N=323).

8.
Conclusions: Evolution not revolution
 Transition between the traditional reading of printed
materials and the „new reading‟ activities of social
media
 Reading still a fairly private experience
 The young understood reading as a primarily
individual cognitive skill of understanding and
interpreting (printed) texts
 Internet use of young adults is often more a
repetition of daily routines than innovative or
pioneering development of new content
(Buckingham 2008)

9.
Conclusions: Evolution not revolution
 Most textual practices related to online communication and
social media, where socio-cultural literacy has a significant
role, even though the respondents themselves did not
necessarily consider these textual practices as „reading‟
 Even though young adults spent a lot of time with short text
forms for interpersonal and peer communication, they had
not abandoned reading professionally produced texts and
they still appreciate printed text forms – especially books
 Different forms of media use complete (rather than
compete with) each other as forms of reading